[[folder:Unfortunate Implications]]%% Remember: "no example may be added without proof that it's not just one person thinking." Citations are required.

->''"Literature/HarryPotter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."''-->--'''Robin Browne''' (often [[BeamMeUpScotty misattributed]] to Creator/StephenKing)

The ''Twilight'' franchise isn't only criticized for [[OurVampiresAreDifferent "ruining" vampires]]. The books, movies and [[Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey followers]] have a good deal of [[UnfortunateImplications notoriously uncomfortable]] aspects to their stories.

* The point of the story seems to be that if you love a guy you should do whatever you have to to be with him... no matter how hard HE makes it for you to stay with him.** Throughout most of the story the biggest obstacle to Edward and Bella being together is Edward himself; Edward's family instantly loves Bella and goes out of their way to be supportive of the relationship, Bella's dad fluctuates between approving and disapproving but even when he disapproves does little more than grumble under his breath about it. There are very few actual obstacles in the way of the relationship and most of them are ones that Edward creates by being needlessly angsty and melodramatic. All of Edward's fears about how being with him could be bad for Bella are eventually proven groundless and even before they are none of the other vampires seem to share them (which makes me wonder how he developed those fears in the first place) and whenever he actually leaves Bella it's always entirely of his own volition and for reasons that are entirely his own.** The lesson is also that your love is more important that anything anyone else has going. Vampires and werewolves going to war? People being killed and maimed? Entire family being uprooted because of the risk of being exposed? Your love is more important that all of that. It's the perfect message to send to hormonal teens. * Whenever Bella does anything that Edward earlier told her not to do, it almost always gets her into trouble, which Edward then shows up and saves her from... and then he tells her what a silly little girl she is, reminds her of how weak, helpless and fragile she is and reiterates to her the importance of doing as he says and letting him take care of her. What a positive role-model for impressionable teenage girls!** This all wouldn't have been as bad, if it weren't for the fact that the story seems to support what Edward says, implying every time that Bella objects to anything he says or does that she is just too naïve and foolish to realize how right he is.** And even the idea of letting a man take care of things and listening to him wouldn't be bad, except that ''New Moon'' seems to be saying that a woman NEEDS a man and should come to a complete catatonic wreck without purpose to her life without him. Nothing in Bella's life seems to mean anything once Edward leaves.** It does fit the logic of the plot (what logic it has). He's a telepath over 100 years old. She's a high school teenager. He has a century of experience living in the masquerade she's brand new to. So he's going to understand a lot of things she doesn't and the wisdom of age is something that's often difficult to relate to the young (you have to live it). What this really shows is why it's a bad idea for two people this far apart in age to be together. ** Not to mention their different species. It would be understandable, even if insulting, from him to think of her as a pet.%%* Physical attraction, drama, jealousy, and co-dependence are the foundations of a good relationship, NOT respect, trust, mutual interests, or open communication.* If, upon the discovering that you are pregnant, your boyfriend's first reaction is to get angry and tell you that you ARE getting an abortion, you should not only stay with him but go ahead and have the baby, because after it's born everything will just magically fall into place and the three of you will live happily ever after because BabiesMakeEverythingBetter.* Jacob tries to force himself on Bella. It's just a kiss (to keep things PG-13) but Bella actually refers to it as "assault" and reacts to it as so. And yet she still allows Jacob to MARRY HER DAUGHTER.** The fact that Jacob's justification for one of his fellow werewolves having permanently scarred his girlfriend's face in a fit of rage after she rejected him is simply "hanging out with werewolves has its risks" also makes Bella's judgment seem questionable.** Also, at one point, Bella refers to the incident as "her shame" despite the fact that it was ''Jacob'' who forced himself on her, which sends a message of victim-blaming that is downright uncomfortable to read.* If you truly care about someone you'll stick by them no matter what and forgive everything they do. Even murder.* Men should not be held accountable for things that they do when they are very angry or otherwise emotionally overwhelmed, but women should.** Both Edward and Jacob "unintentionally" hurt Bella (or at least come close to it), say things to her that basically amount to threats, and do various other questionable things throughout the series, but this is usually excused away by the fact that they're men and, therefore, not as in control of their emotions as women.** Most of the other men in the series also do things that could be interpreted in a negative light but usually aren't because they did them in "the heat of rage/passion/jealousy/lust/etc". But any time a woman steps even the slightest bit out of line she is swiftly and harshly reprimanded for it, usually by the men around her, some of whom exhibited the exact same behavior at some point.** Bella herself also judges women far more harshly than men, attributing most reprehensible male behavior as something that must go along with having a Y chromosome and shrugging it off, but developing an instant dislike of any girl who displays any flaws or weaknesses no matter how minor. She is extremely judgmental of other women but seems to be boundlessly forgiving of men.** All the worse in taking the PMS stereotype into account. This is a (thankfully dying) assumption, mostly by men, that any emotion a woman expresses is the result of PMS, an UnfortunateImplication in it's own right. A lot of women have little to no control over the emotional aspect of PMS. So it comes off that woman are to blame for things they can't help, and men are to be excused from completely purposeful behavior. %* If you feel that you're superior to everyone else, it's because you are!* You know that instant attraction that you feel for that guy you don't even know that's based in nothing other than physical appearance? Well, that's true love, and you should be willing to sacrifice anything and anyone that you have to in order to be with that guy you don't even know because he is your destiny and if he acts like a possessive nut job, controls your entire life, treats you like a helpless child, frequently says things to you that basically amount to physical threats and even "accidentally" does you real bodily harm on more than one occasion, you had just better steadfastly endure it all or you're not worthy of true love.** Oh, and when even he himself warns you to stay away because he WILL hurt you, don't listen. That's just a test... a ''true love'' test.** Of course, all of this only applies if he's hot.*** That's right! Even though all the girls in school have a shallow physical attraction to that particular guy, YOUR shallow physical attraction is special!* A running theme in the series seems to be that being physically attractive makes up for being a bad person or automatically makes you a good person regardless of your actions; in short, BeautyEqualsGoodness.* A lot of things that the Cullens (TheBeautifulElite) do are [[MoralMyopia considered horrible when anyone else does them.]]* The only thing keeping Bella from realizing that Edward is controlling and possessive to an unhealthy extreme seems to be the fact that every time she sees him she is struck anew by how "OMG GORGEOUS!!!" he is; no matter what kind of situation they're in Bella spends at least some small portion of every scene in which they are together reminding the audience of how mindbogglingly physically perfect he is. [[DistractedByTheSexy Bella's distracted and disarmed by his physical attractiveness]] even when he's done something that she admittedly does not approve of. It's not even as if she forgives his flaws or has rationalized them in her own mind, it's more like she's just so distracted by how pretty he is that she can't be bothered to notice anything else about him for more then a few seconds and then it's back to drooling over his perfect hair, skin, eyes, teeth, voice, breath, etc. One can't help but wonder how differently she would have felt about him had he been ugly or even just average looking.* If you fail to win the love of a man you're doomed to a life of solitary misery and will never know true happiness.** Most of the single characters in the story are miserable and stricken with jealousy towards Edward and Bella.* There's also heavy implications that any woman who isn't in a relationship will be bitter and jealous towards women who are, and that these feelings can only be pacified by the bitter woman in question finding a "true love" of her own. Meyer seems to think it's just a given that all women are jealous, self-centered bitches.** Could be projection, or generalising from one example.* Not to mention that good women are never angry or blame a guy. Leah is considered a bitch for daring to blame ''Sam'' for the break-up, and everyone assumes she holds a grudge against Emily, even though there's no evidence of that.** Alternatively, Emily is praised for forgiving Sam and making HIM feel better about the whole "slashing her face off" bit. The fact the focus is given to how bad Sam felt about the incident and how good it was Emily forgave him and aleved that guilt as opposed to how Emily had to have felt about the whole thing says a lot about the situation.* If you can't (or don't) have a baby, you are of less value as a human being than people who can.** The main reason the whole Cullen family winds up loving Bella so much and basically building their lives around her is because she has the glorious gift of being able to make babies.** Not to mention Leah, who is incapable of having children, has a fiance who leaves her for her cousin (who presumably can) and this is never depicted as a bad thing. In fact no one, even her own family, seems to feel the least bit sorry for Leah, she is seen as a bitch for daring to be angry at her fiance for leaving her and everyone in the pack hates her despite the fact that she's never really done anything wrong. She even devotes her life to protecting them despite their disdain for her, and this is written in such a way as to suggest that they're all justified in disliking her and the reader should dislike her too.*** Oh, and Jacob believes that her being infertile is a sign she's "Not as female as she should be". I'll let that one sink in for a little bit, shall I?* It seems like every time a woman is either independent or capable of keeping up and holding her own alongside the men she winds up either being evil or being a complete bitch. The implication seems to be that only a crazy bitch who is incapable of "true love" would even want to be self-sufficient or that a woman should only bother becoming self-sufficient if she is incapable of winning the love of a man (which in the stories is depicted as the ultimate shortcoming.)** Especially evident when Jacob got hurt in Eclipse. Leah was being stupid for taking on a newborn vampire on her own--despite her little brother just doing the same successfully, and it's her fault that Jacob had to save her, despite her not being in any direct danger as such. Except she was untouched by the vampire, has killed vampires one on one before, and is faster than Jacob, who got hurt because he was too slow. But instead of blaming Jacob for butting in on Leah's fight and getting himself hurt, it's obviously Leah's fault, because how dare she fight a vampire without her male peers' approval. No, poor Jacob who shoved Leah out of the way is innocent!** This is averted somewhat by the Denali and Amazon sisters, but the Amazons are described as barbaric from the start. Conveniently, their clan is all women. In the case of the Denali sisters, the three original sisters were the founders of the succubus myth, but Irina is paired off with Laurent (who eventually dies, presumably throwing Irina into the same dangerous state Bella was in when Edward left her), and later, Kate is paired with Garrett. By the end of ''Breaking Dawn'', Tanya is the only member of the Denali coven who doesn't have a mate, and considering the fact that Tanya had the gall to try to seduce our CelibateHero Edward and a woman without a mate is somehow being punished in this universe, it's likely that Tanya is only alone as subconscious retribution for her past "whoredom."* Werewolf "imprinting" is introduced as not ''necessarily'' sexual... but when Quil imprints on little girl Claire, becoming a super-duper father figure, it's implied that [[WifeHusbandry they will have disturbing lycanthropic sex when she's of age]]. Won't ''that'' be an awkward conversation.-->"You never saw a real parent so jazzed to play whatever stupid kiddie sport their rugrat could think up. I'd seen Quil play peekaboo for an hour straight without getting bored. [...] Though I did think it sucked that he had a good fourteen years of monk-i-tude ahead of him until Claire was his age."** Quil's hormones force him to spoil Claire rotten by catering to her slightest whim. He's literally incapable of even thinking about disregarding her wishes. This is presented as not only healthy, but ''desirable.''** And then there's Jacob's [[spoiler:imprinting on Renesmee in ''Breaking Dawn''. Yes, everyone insists that he doesn't see her "like that", but it's kind of hard to believe when Bella specifically notes that he's ''shaking'' at the thought of only seven years passing before Renesmee is physically seventeen...]]** To the point where the director for the Breaking Dawn movies is specifically coaching Taylor on how not to make the scenes creepy in any way whatsoever. He said he's trying to make it as spiritual and non-physical as possible.* Edward's behavior is basically [[https://web.archive.org/web/20140331123948/http://tsdcv3.proboards.com/thread/64 that of an emotionally abusive boyfriend]], and he has all the personality of a cardboard box. Bella uses excuses that real life abused women use to justify his behavior, such as that Edward acts this way because he really loves her. And at the end of ''Twilight'' [[spoiler:it's very easy to see parallels to this, with Bella breaking up with Edward while screaming that she never wants to see him again and demanding that her father let her leave ASAP, Edward chasing her to Arizona to convince her to return, and her deciding to come back after being badly hurt and staying in the hospital... with the excuse being that she fell down a flight of stairs.]]** In fact, throughout the series, Edward performs every action that could be taken as a form of abuse against Bella, short of actually striking her, and even then there was at least one occasion where he grabbed her with force that was just shy of doing any actual damage. There was also the time he threw her into a table and cut her arm, ostensibly to protect her from a rabid Jasper.* Bella's behavior is arguably just as vile. [[http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/151027.html This]] review takes Dr. Hare's twenty traits of sociopathy and applies ''every single one'' to something Bella has done or thought in ''New Moon''.* Emily and Sam's relationship -- She agrees to date him after he (accidentally) hurts her enough to leave scars. There is also no mention of Emily doing anything besides cooking, cleaning, weaving, or other household tasks.** It gets even more disturbing when it's revealed that Sam had imprinted on her and was basically harassing her to go out with him, which she kept refusing because he had broken up with her cousin and had really hurt her. When Emily finally tells Sam off, he goes ''nuts'' and transforms right in front of her, accidentally scarring and disfiguring her face. When she's recovering, she "suddenly realizes" that Sam is her one true love and she can't live without him. ** According to WordOfGod, the reason Sam attacked Emily was because he could sense she did have feelings for him. In other words "her lips said 'no', but her body said 'yes'."** Bella also admits to loving Jacob after he emotionally blackmailed her to kiss her and is not even mad he was lying.* Leah is the only female werewolf ever, can keep up with the menfolk, and lost her ability to have children after she began to transform. She also lost the man she truly loved and was considered a shrewish harpy by virtually everyone.* Jacob and his father are pleased when Paul the pack's {{Jerkass}} imprints on Jacob's older sister Rachel visiting from college, who is such a "nerd" she's finishing her four year degree in half the time, because this means Rachel will [[StayInTheKitchen have to stay at home]].* In Creator/StephenieMeyer's novella ''The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner'', Diego--a vampire who seems to be a combination of stereotypical black and stereotypical Hispanic, based on his description ("pretty, with dark, dense, curly hair, big, wide eyes, and really full lips"), his talk about "junkie hos" and "gang-bangs", and his random bursts of Spanish--tells the title character about hunting down the gang that killed his brother, killing the leader, and then getting cornered by the rest of the gang. Does the streetwise Diego get himself out of this? No. He's rescued by Riley, a vampire (and therefore, in Meyer's world, [[MightyWhitey pale and prismatic]]), who jumps down between Diego and the gang.* Edward witholding sex until they get married is fine, it's his beliefs... the problem is that those beliefs don't correlate with Bella's, and she accepts it to stay with him. And despite not wanting to be a mother, she later comes to admit that marriage and motherhood were all she ever needed. So the right man means discarding your own belief systems and deciding motherhood is the best thing for you after getting pregnant by accident? While the Mormon agenda of the book was never subtle, the implications of the above are downright horrifying - it portrays accidental pregnancy as something that results in happy families and not resentment, and you should respect your partner for taking away your autonomy and accept it.* [[http://io9.com/5576956/why-team-jacob-always-has-to-lose-in-twilight This article]] examines how interracial relationships never work out in these stories, how Bella is essentially marrying an old man who doesn't want sex but always wants to boss her around, how Bella, who ''wants'' sex, goes after the painfully prudish Edward instead of the man who wants it as much as she does, and how in the end, Bella essentially chooses ''not'' to choose.* In the official guide to ''Twilight'', Meyer outright says that turning into a vampire causes the person to turn white, no matter what their ethnicity is. This is not so bad, except that in a previous section, Meyer also states that it is the sparkly, pale appearance of the vampires that make them universally beautiful.** [[http://www.womanist-musings.com/2010/04/monstrous-musings-got-vampire-privilege.html At least]] [[http://www.womanist-musings.com/2010/05/monstrous-musings-got-vampire-privilege.html three]] [[http://www.womanist-musings.com/2011/11/monstrous-musings-race-lessons-from.html articles]] outline a latent racist subtext present throughout the series.* There have been more than one instances where dozens of other people would die as a consequence of Bella's actions. This is either ignored or even outright condoned by Bella and the other main characters, including Jacob, who is supposed to be the True Alpha and has the specific job of protecting humans from the vampires, but willingly chooses not to in order to not put his [[WifeHusbandry future child-bride]] at risk.** In fact the over arching message of the story seems to be that if you're in ''true love'', then the laws of morality and basic human decency don't apply to you.* Throughout the books, the characters act as if being capable of doing something means that it's alright for them to do it. For example, Bree initially finds the idea of vampires having laws to be laughable, as she can't imagine there being any power sufficient to enforce them. Inversely, attempts to restrict such behavior is seen as oppressive. For example, the idea of asking non-vegetarian vampires to not eat people is treated like infringing on a lifestyle choice, and while the Volturi are treated as dictators, the ''Illustrated Guide'' implies that the Romanians (who had an even bloodier reign than the Volturi) are to be seen as fallen heroes awaiting the downfall of their rivals. The main difference is that the Volturi order the vampires to not behave in ways that will draw human attention.** Also several times throughout the books, characters acknowledge that what they're doing is wrong... and still do it anyways. So as long as you know it's wrong, it's okay to do it. The above-mentioned Romanian vampires think themselves superior to the Volturi because they at least were honest about their intentions, even if their intentions were much more bloody and tyrannical than the Volturi's.* One review notes a great many in the chapter of ''Eclipse'' where Jacob tricks Bella into kissing him. Among them is the fact that even though the entire thing is meant to be romantic, most of the tropes invoked (AintTooProudToBeg, PleaseIWillDoAnything, and ScarpiaUltimatum) are usually seen employed between a villain and their victim.* [[http://applesparkles.wikia.com/wiki/Suicide Suicide]] is treated by virtually every character as the most heroic way to make amends for doing something bad. Bella also frequently uses threats of self-harm to guilt Edward into staying with her, which is a shockingly common form of {{gaslighting}}.** It's also the only good option left if your true love dies. Compare Edward and Victoria: Edward said outright that if Bella were to die he'd commit suicide (and came close to doing it in New Moon). When Victoria's true love James died, she swore revenge. Keep in mind that Edward is the hero while Victoria is the villain.*** In fact, many couples expressed that they would kill themselves if their True Love were to perish before them. This is treated as being extremely romantic and almost leaves the sense that, if a person were to get over the death of their loved one and move on instead of killing themselves, their love isn't as strong as someone who ''did'' actually end their own life.* [[http://applesparkles.wikia.com/wiki/TWILIGHT_IS_ABOWT_TRU_WUV!!!_BELLA_N_EDWARD_LUV_EACH_OTHER! This page]] points out that the entire relationship​ between the two main characters resembles more a drug addiction (or lust) than love. Edward even lampshades it in the first film, but Bella also has her fair share of it, particularly in ''New Moon''. After being left by her boyfriend, she has an AngstComa that can only be fixed with [[DoesThisRemindYouofAnything big "doses" of adrenaline in order to experiment extreme sensations that allow her to have visions.]] She keeps hurting herself but still keeps elevating the doses of danger, to the point of practically killing herself in the process. And this is portrayed as true love. ** Keep in mind that these visions are of Edward ''telling her she is being stupid for doing those dangerous things.'' That's right: she deliberately goes into dangerous situations so that she can hear Edward's voice in her head, and that voice tells her ''not to do that very thing''.* The unfortunate implications are at least equally portrayed with Edward. He left his family (that loved him and were his only company for decades) to go live in a rat infested place, curl into a ball, and let misery take over right after the break up and then went all suicidal over the possibility of Bella dying, so he was also nothing without his ''girlfriend''.* Jacob sexually assaults Bella in the third book, and she responds by punching him with such force that her hand breaks. This entire scene is treated like a romantic comedy, with Jacob showing absolutely no remorse and even ''laughing'' at Bella for being angry. After he takes her home, her father asks what happened. Jacob says that he tried to kiss Bella and she punched him. Charlie's response to finding out that his daughter has just been molested and injured when resisting said molestation? He laughs and says, "Good for you, kid." (Thankfully in the film version Charlie clearly doesn't approve.) Not to mention later in the book when Jacob threatened to ''kill himself if Bella did not kiss him.'' Again, portrayed as an incredibly romantic gesture that makes Bella realize she's in love with him.** (after Bella starts to fight back and Jacob doesn't stop) "Acting on instinct, I let my hands drop to my side, and shut down. I opened my eyes and didn't fight, didn't feel... Just waited for him to stop." This reads like the start of a rape, but it's portrayed as romantic, erotic and something women should look for: a man that won't take no for an answer. Not to mention the heavy amount of victim blaming and "justification" that follows: "He grinned over at me. “You kissed me back.”" which translates to "you didn't say 'no'", except she never said yes and when she tried to say no Jacob cut her off with sexual assault/abuse.* The Quileutes are a real tribe. Did Meyer bother to talk to them first before she turned them into fantasy werewolves or did she just think it was okay to mess with the mythology and culture of an historically oppressed group of people?* Rosalie's back story includes being both the most insanely spoiled human being on earth and also being the victim of gang rape at the hands of her fiance and his drunken friends. She doesn't really seem to mind the whole "rape" thing once she kills them all and kind of brushes it off in exchange for wanting more things. The rape thing was more or less an excuse for Carlisle to turn her. The fact that Rosalie blames the rape on her own beauty and neither Bella nor Stephanie Meyer offer any argument is... disturbing. ** Also, the whole reason Carlisle picked Rosalie of the street within a couple hours of her rape is because letting someone that beautiful die would be a "waste" ''and'' he hoped Edward would be attracted to her. Edward proceeds to whine about Carlisle turning her, and in Rosalie's own words, talking like [[DefiledForever there was something wrong with her]].* Bella gets embarrassed when Charlie, her father, comes into her room to check on her when he hears strange noises... which is Edward sneaking into her room. Which Bella has no problems with.%%* Many of the relationships could easily be compared to a parent/child relationship:%%** Besides the controlling behavior, Edward treats Bella like a child. He carries her around, feeds her, and sings a lullaby to her so she can sleep. She's even mentioned he acts like a father.%%** Jacob is partially raising Renesmee, as Quil is doing with Claire. Both girls are expected to be with both werewolves. In addition, Jacob said that Quil would be a better parent for Claire than her own parents.%%** Rosalie asked Carlisle to change Emmett because he looked like a toddler one of her friends had.%%** Alice looks prepubescent and is held up as an epitome of beauty.%%** Carlisle not only turned Esme (thus making him her vampiric father), but also treated her when she was younger.%%* When Bella thinks she's pregnant, Carlisle makes a decision to abort the baby with Edward. As a doctor, he should've made the decision with Bella. So apparently if you're married and something happens to your body, your husband and doctor should be the ones who make a decision as to what to do with it. Screw autonomy.%%* The "plot" of the second book can be described as thus: If the man you love tells you that he can't stand you and then leaves, plunging you into a depression so deep and long-lasting that your father thinks you should seek professional help, and then comes back and says he only did it to protect you, then you should forgive him without a second thought.%%* It is expressed that Jacob was meant to be the "true alpha" of the wolves all along, and that he just didn't want the responsibility. He finally steps up and takes on his role as the true alpha and accepts his responsibility... just so he can run away and abandon everyone and everything he's ever known for a girl who has made it quite clear that she's NOT going to get with him. He abandons his pack, his home, his family, his people to defend a selfish girl who knowingly and willingly made the choice to get with a vampire, screw up a treaty, and potentially cause a war... okay, another war. But this decision is portrayed as the correct one, with Jacob finally stepping into his role as a leader by abandoning everything else to run off and do what he wants over a girl, and essentially NOT leading anyone.%%** Taken even farther with the "final battle" in Breaking Dawn. Bad enough that Jacob willingly let the Cullens invite their vampire friends and gave them free reign to eat people for the sake of his [[WifeHusbandry child bride]], but after setting up the final battle to be at his home ground, endangering everyone he's ever known and rounding all the wolves to fight on his order for the sake of said child bride, what is the almighty Alpha going to do? He's going to run away with Renesmee and leave them all to die. The pack, his family, his people, EVERYONE. He's the true Alpha, meant to be the leader of his tribe, and he's leaving them all to die for his interests while he runs away.%%** It's even worse than that. As the true alpha, all Jacob needs to do is give an alpha order, and no wolf can disobey. He isn't just letting the other wolves, including children, die so he can run off with his child bride, he is ''ordering'' them all to die so he can run.* As stated [[http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/322129.html in this review,]] the concept of immortal children is ''terrifying.'' Meyer (certainly unintentionally) implies that many, ''many'' children died in the process of making immortal children so that their vampire creators could have someone to baby and drool over; considering how hard it is for vampires to stop feeding and begin the transformation process, it's very possible that countless children died during this process. Not to mention these vampires were ''stealing'' these babies away from their rightful families and condemning them to a life of eternal pain (seeing how painful it is for a vampire to be thirsty), not to mention the fact that they'll [[NotGrowingUpSucks never mature]], be able to experience life to the fullest, or be able to even begin to understand ''why'' they're in pain (because of thirst). Also, the children vampires were responsible for the deaths of literally thousands of people because they couldn't control themselves. And yet we're supposed to believe the Volturi are just so ''[[DesignatedVillain evil]]'' for putting a stop to this reign of terror. Furthermore, Bella is completely fine with the deaths of hundreds of people just to save her and her daughter's lives because they're more important than ordinary humans. Even other vampires are seen as less important than Bella and Renesmee in her mind, as she's willing to build an army of them to save her. Renesmee is in the same boat as her mother, since she never objects to the [[CannonFodder vampires and shapeshifters]] laying down their lives for her and she doesn't even have the excuse of not knowing any better since that she supposedly has the intelligence of an adult. Keep in mind that both characters are supposed to be smart and compassionate people who think of others before themselves. Made worse since their vampire army never actually did anything but talk, the Volturi peacefully left them alone, so all those humans who were made snacks by the vampires were essentially senseless deaths that could have been prevented ''had the Cullens go to the Volturi straight away in the first place instead of build an army''!* Creator/RogerEbert [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-twilight-saga-new-moon-2009 pointed out]] that portraying Native Americans as werewolves seems to imply that they are savage animals who don't like to wear clothes.* As ''WebVideo/CinemaSins'' pointed out in their Breaking Dawn Part 1 episode, Jacob imprinted on Renesmee, a child. Considering how imprinting works in this series, this is basically pedophilia.** Imprinting is not to the imprinter's advantage either. Meyer explains that any werewolf that do imprint on another woman will fall in love with her. Which is a more positive way of saying he will be obsessed with her, stalk her and never leave her side. He's essentially ''brainwashed'' into serving his love, shallowing his personality, no matter how mean she is to him (Renesmee is guilty of this to Jacob). What's worse is that if the imprintee rejects him (Emily) the imprinter will most likely maul half her face off (Sam), or something akin to it, forcing her to stay with him. Terrifying? Keep in mind that all of this is conveyed in a ''romantic'' light.*** Let's also not ignore the fact that the two white people get a happy ending, while the Native American boy gets essentially [[{{Squick}} brainwashed into pedophilia.]]* The completely fabricated mythology of the Quileute tribe, a very real group of indigenous persons with their own very real mythology. While the tribe typically doesn't complain about the tourist dollars the series has brought them, they're otherwise understandably pissed about their culture being deliberately rewritten.* Reading the [[http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/873786.html Twilight Lexicon Personal Correspondence #12]] can be a rather… unpleasant experience, to say the least. Meyer attempts to justify some of the issues fans have had about aspects of the story, such as the Cullens murdering numerous people without any consequence, and it doesn't go so well.* Bella is very [[http://applesparkles.wikia.com/wiki/ZOMFG_WUT_DO_U_MEEN_BELLA_IS_SHALLO!!%3F!%3F shallow]], as she rejects Eric and Mike, who are nice to her on her first day, on the grounds that they are not as physically attractive as Edward, who is not nearly as nice, which seems to imply that a relationship should be based on purely physical characteristics rather than actually knowing the other person.* As pointed out [[http://applesparkles.wikia.com/wiki/Bella#Why_Bella_is_an_anti-feminist_FAIL here]], Bella rarely thinks before she acts and usually just lets her emotions and selfish impulses guide her actions… and this ultimately leads her to an eternity of happiness with the man of her dreams and a perfect, adoring family, all of whom seem to care about nothing more than taking care of Bella and making her happy.** On the rare occasion that she does make her own decisions (as opposed to just reacting to stimuli and letting Edward think for her) it ends in disaster… from which Edward usually saves her. In fact, generally just going against Edward's will usually doesn't end well for Bella.%%*** Imagine this conversation:%%--->'''Mom:''' I am not going to let you ride a motorcycle with that boy!\\'''Daughter:''' But MOM! Bella Swan gets to ride a motorcycle!\\'''Mom:''' If Bella Swan jumped off a cliff, would you do it?\\'''Daughter:''' Mom, she ''did''!* [[http://applesparkles.wikia.com/wiki/Things_We_Learned_From_Twilight "Things We Learned From Twilight"]] sums up much of the above very nicely.[[/folder]]

[[folder:All The Rest]]* AcceptableTargets: This whole series for YourVampiresSuck. Run CTRL+F on that page and you'll find 35 entries. Pick up a vampire book/show/game etc written after ''Twilight'' and there's a high probability that it will bash ''Twilight'' at some point. Hell, even the page image shows [[Series/SesameStreet Count von Count]] punching Edward in the face!** Within the ''Twilight'' universe itself, blonde women seem to be this as far as Stephenie Meyer is concerned. You'd be hard-pressed to find a blonde lady in the series who isn't depicted as shallow, self-absorbed, stupid, bitchy or outright evil. * AccidentalAesop: Many opponents of the series cite examples of Jacob and Edward's dominance of Bella as anything from undermining feminism to propagating Mormon beliefs (just look at the AlternateCharacterInterpretation page).* AccidentalInnuendo: ''Eclipse'', in the dedication. Among his other positive qualities, the author thanks her husband for his "willingness to eat out." One may be shocked by the level of TMI about their private relationship, before realizing Meyer means going to restaurants.** In [[FilmOfTheBook the film version]] of ''New Moon'', Edward is a real bastard:-->'''Bella:''' ''(exasperated)'' I'm coming!-->'''Edward:''' I don't want you to come!** In ''Breaking Dawn'', shortly after Bella [[spoiler: awakens as a vampire]] she uses some...interesting words to describe Edward, including getting lost "in the velvet folds" (referring to his voice) and his hand being "satin-covered steel". These descriptors are frequently found in erotica (or fanfiction) but are generally used to describe...well, different body parts...* ActorShipping: Creator/RobertPattinson and Creator/KristenStewart have repeatedly denied they are in a relationship. This does not stop fans from insisting that they are lying. Of course, a few fans have seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFxZKgKfJnU multiple videos]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CYEnLPa3Yw&feature=related pictures]] of Kristen Stewart and Nikki Reed kissing and are pairing them as well. The fact that Stewart came out as [[BiTheWay bisexual]] a few years after the release of the last movie only added fuel to the fire.** Contributing to this is the fact that Pattinson admitted/joked that he auditioned for the part of Edward entirely for the opportunity to hit on Stewart.** Confirmed between Pattinson and Stewart, even after Stewart's "cheating" scandal.** ''And'' now they have broken up again. A cynical man could be forgiven for thinking that they stayed together after she cheated on him just long enough to promote the film release of ''Breaking Dawn Part 2''.* AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame: The first book would really work better if the fact that Edward is a vampire was unknown - but the [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil cover of the book]] actually points it out.** The only thing that a lot of people know about ''Breaking Dawn'' if they're not fans is that 'the werewolf falls in love with [[spoiler: the [[OfficialCouple Official Couple's]] half-vampire baby']].* [[AmericansHateTingle (Native) Americans Hate Tingle]]: To say that this book series is unpopular with Native American readers would be a ''serious'' understatement, given that Stephanie Meyer's depiction of the Quieleute people (a very much ''real'' tribe) either [[CriticalResearchFailure ignored]] or [[UnfortunateImplications completely rewrote]] their actual tribal mythology.* {{Anvilicious}}: The first book in particular is made of anvil. Giving into those base desires will kill you! Sex before marriage will kill you!! [[SexIsEvil Blood equals sex equals death equals don't do it!!!]]** Every woman has the desire to get married and be a mother ingrained in her DNA, even if she doesn't realize it; if she says she doesn't want these things, it's just a silly little rebellious phase that she will get over.*** In the books Bella originally doesn't want to get married and admits to never wanting a child, but after Edward gives her an ultimatum (he won't even discuss having sex with her unless they get married) and she unintentionally becomes pregnant, everything clicks into place and she realizes that marriage and motherhood were the keys to happiness all along.*** Similarly, all of the women in the books are either married and has children, wants to get married and have children, or regrets that she can't get married and have children unless she is one of the villains or is meant to serve as an example of someone selfish and irresponsible (i.e. the sort of person YOU shouldn't want to be). ** Don't even ''think'' naughty thoughts. Vampires [[DirtyMindReading will hear you]]. And... and... ''judge'' you!** Your boyfriend should be the most important thing in your life, he should come before your family, your friends, your future, and even your own personal safety.** If you can't get a boyfriend you're doomed to a life of solitary misery... and there's probably something wrong with you (especially if you don't even want a boyfriend).* AssPull: ** The BigBad vamps Victoria, James, and Laurent were not mentioned at all until the very end of the first book. The movie rectifies this mistake and has them shown earlier. The role of the Volturi in enforcing the rules of vampire society was similarly introduced [[http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/post/8940166823 out of the blue]] in ''New Moon''. ** Before Breaking Dawn Part II was released, the promotional materials and marketing hyped up an epic final battle that was shown in nearly every trailer and TV spot. When the film was released, the final battle [[spoiler: turned out to be one of Alice's visions]].** Also from ''Breaking Dawn'', just when it seems the Cullens will have to face the consequences of allying with werewolves, mortal enemies of vampires, Jake and his tribe are suddenly revealed to be a group of mystical shapeshifters whose totem just happens to be a wolf, and whose powers are completely unrelated to those of ''real'' werewolves (or "Children of the Moon" as the book calls them). This comes despite them being regarded as werewolves by the narrative for the whole of the series. And the Cullens ''knowing they weren't real werewolves all that time.'' They didn't say anything about it because YouDidntAsk.* AuthorsSavingThrow: Fans were happy to hear that the film would not end with the massive AntiClimax that the book had and that there would actually be a final battle. [[spoiler:Even though it turns out that the film has it both ways, and the battle was [[AllJustADream All Just A Vision]].]]* AwardSnub: Inverted. At the time the movies first came out, they had been nominated in nearly every category at the MTV Movie Awards, and winning every one of them. Because MTV doesn't monitor IP addresses and allows people to vote multiple times, ''New Moon'' beat out ''Film/AliceInWonderland2010'' and ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' (both of which grossed over a billion dollars), ''Film/TheHangover'' (the highest grossing comedy ever which, like ''Avatar'', won Best Picture at the Golden Globes), and ''[[Film/HarryPotter Half-Blood Prince]]''.** Got even worse in 2010, when ''Eclipse'' beat ''{{Film/Inception}}'', ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', ''Film/BlackSwan'' and ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' in categories like Best Film, Best Male Performance, Best Female Performance, and Best Fight (Yes, the films with wizards blowing up a restaurant with spells and two guys fighting in a ''[[GravityScrew rotating hall]]'' got beaten by, well, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf52BQ7Lub4 this]].)** Finally averted in 2012, where ''Breaking Dawn Part II'' only won the distinguished award for Best Shirtless Scene, the only category it was nominated for. Its four year streak for the Best Film category was broken by ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}''.** On the other hand has been nominated to about every category of [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Razzie Awards]] and won none (except for Jackson Rathbone, but then again, that was mainly because he had the misfortune to turn in ''two'' bad performances in the same year, the other being in ''Film/TheLastAirbender'').*** Averted by the 2012 UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward, where Film/BreakingDawn Part 2 was nominated for all the Razzies and failed to take only 2: Worst Screenplay (lost to Film/ThatsMyBoy) and Worst Supporting Actress (lost to Rihanna for ''Film/{{Battleship}}'').* AwesomeMusic: In an inversion to the quality of the films, many of the songs on the soundtracks are ''fantastic'' featuring work by the likes of Muse, Paramore, Thom Yorke, Bat For Lashes, Beck, Metric, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Black Ghosts, Lykke Li, Death Cab For Cutie, The Joy Formidable, and ''many'' others. The OST is great as well, and the trilogy is scored by none other than Music/CarterBurwell, Music/HowardShore, and Creator/AlexandreDesplat. For more, see [[Twilight/AwesomeMusic here]]. ** Special note goes to Iron & Wine, whose "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" was rereleased as a digital single and became his most famous song overnight due to a heavy case of SongAssociation.* BileFascination: Like a [[GuiltyPleasures bizarrely-enjoyable]] train-wreck, some readers can't pull away.** Also, those who hate it seem to be just as obsessed with it as those who love it; as though they're perpetually trying to figure out how anything so purely terrible could exist, let alone get published and make money. In pursuit of the answer to this riddle, many of them spend even more time thinking about it (analyzing it and picking apart its every intricacy) than fans do.*** Although some of those antis would argue that the only way someone could enjoy this series is ''not'' to think about the contents.* BilingualBonus: Readers who understand Portuguese will get a laugh at Kaure assuming Edward is a ''Lobishomen'' in ''Breaking Dawn'', since the word (and the legend) derives from ''lobisomem'', which means... werewolf. Even funnier in the Brazilian translation of the book, where they literally translate it as ''lobisomem'', so to the readers is easy to assume Kaure is mistaking Edward for a werewolf of all things.* BrokenBase: Leading up to the release of the film version of ''New Moon'', the war between the "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" factions became so intense that Burger King was able to base an ad campaign around it.** And the base promptly exploded when ''Breaking Dawn'' came out.* CaptainObviousReveal: Arguably features a few throughout the series.** In ''Twilight'', the ‘twist’ that Edward and the Cullens are vampires (to the point where [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the blurb states it in some editions]] and it’s [[AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame the only thing some people even know about the plot]]). ** In ''Eclipse'', it came as a surprise to pretty much no one but the Cullens that Victoria is behind the newborn army, seeing as she spent most of the previous book actively trying to kill Bella and is virtually the only person known to the Cullens with the motivation to create one. Bella herself repeatedly states she thinks Victoria is responsible, but [[CassandraTruth no one else listens]]. The film adaption doesn’t even bother hiding this fact. * ClicheStorm: Awkward, clumsy girl moves to new school and is instantly adored by all? ''Check''. New girl falling in love with the hottest (cough) guy in school? ''Check''. Hot boy falls in love with new girl? ''Check''. Girl is so in love she will do anything for her true love? ''Check''. And that's just the beginning...* Administrivia/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike: Lots of distaste even on this wiki, though ideally tropers are providing examples showing why the negative tropes qualify.* ContestedSequel: Even the fans became a BrokenBase with ''Breaking Dawn''. The Amazon page gives it an average 3-star rating -- because most of the reviews are either 5 stars or 1 star.* CreatorsPet: [[CreepyChild Renesmee]] from ''Literature/BreakingDawn''. EVERYONE who meets her loves her, despite the fact that she hasn't done anything other than be [[spoiler:Edward and Bella's half human/half vampire daughter with psychic powers]]. Many fans loathe her for [[SpotlightStealingSquad hijacking the story away from]] the OfficialCouple. Others hate her because her very existence is ArtisticLicenseBiology AND a direct contradiction to previous WordOfGod. [[spoiler:Team Jacob fans hate her for [[DieForOurShip other reasons]].]]* CriticalBacklash: [[FirstInstallmentWins The first movie]] is actually regarded by some as being a decent young adult adaptation, while the other movies are subject to {{Sequelitis}}. If nothing else, the movie is seen as being much better than the source material it was based on.* CriticalResearchFailure: The vampires aparently only go out when it's cloudy because there isn't enough light for it to be shining on them so they won't reflect it by sparkling, but as you see on these [[http://bildr.no/view/NHR5YWsy dirty tiles here]] do they reflect quite a lot of light even when it's cloudy, so they would sparkle when it's cloudy as well.* CriticProof: Greatly savaged by critics, but still a box office success.* DamselScrappy: Bella Swan epitomizes this trope, even commenting in her own narrative that "I guess my brain will never work right. At least I'm pretty." Add in the fact that she can't seem to get out of ''any'' scrape without the intervention of a male, you've got one of the most textbook examples of this trope ''ever''.** Alice Cullen just sums it up: [[LampshadeHanging "I have never seen anyone more prone to life-threatening idiocy."]]* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: When all three of the main characters are extremely possessive, selfish and emotionally manipulative {{Jerkass}}es at best, neither the Cullens nor the Volturi have very many redeeming traits and the story itself pushing jerks to the front, often giving them incredibly fucked up backstories but portraying them rather positively, while pushing the ones that aren't jerks to the background as fast as possible, portraying them negatively despite them not really showing any negative traits, or making them worse in an apparent attempt to make them less sympathetic, it can become really rather hard to even fake that one cares who ends up with who and/or how the story ends because all end results are equally repugnant.* DeathOfTheAuthor: Meyer ostensibly wrote the series to be about the triumph of love over all obstacles. As is well-known by now, it's instead interpreted by many to be a paean to StalkingIsLove, that vampirism "fixes" people of other ethnicities by making them white, and Bella's baby being so spoiled rotten and easily able to bend others to her will she'll probably grow up to take over the world, among others.* DesignatedHero: ** Edward and the Cullens are the good guys because... well, they don't eat humans. They let their vampire buddies eat humans, routinely show up the Muggles, use their awesome powers for pure personal gain, and screw up the lives of many a werewolf to get their way, but at least they don't eat humans.** Bella gives minimal thought to the innocent people being killed by vampires, [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality unless it's someone she knows]]. In ''New Moon'', she seriously considers withholding what she knows about vampires from the werewolves because telling them anything would feel like betrayal to the Cullens (even though she knows full well that the Cullens are in no danger from the wolves at all and that helping the wolves learn about the vampires will help them stop Victoria more quickly and thus keep more people from dying).** It's a lot harder to sympathize with Bree Tanner when she shows no remorse at all for committing multiple murders and seems under the impression that she is above laws as long as there is no one to hold her to them. There's also the matter of her and Diego suffering from a ''severe'' case of TooDumbToLive.** And in the unfinished manuscript for ''Literature/MidnightSun'', Edward is definitely genocidal, casually mentioning wanting to [[MisplacedRetribution slaughter the Quilute tribe]] due to Jacob [[DisproportionateRetribution daring to speak to Bella]] because as far as he knew they were defenseless. He also comes across as a school killer, plotting the murders of his entire class so he could get to Bella without witnesses, and later plots getting her at her home in a way that comes across as ''very'' much like he's planning a rape.* DesignatedVillain: James and Victoria are pretty thinly etched, but it could be argued that the BigBad of the Volturi have, in spite of some questionable practices, actually done a lot of good over the centuries, particularly by overthrowing the despotic Romanian coven and preventing vampire wars from escalating or breaking out altogether. If analyzed closely, the Cullens and their friends' determination to stand up to them seems to be fueled in part over petulance at still having to obey rules even as powerful immortal beings. Like not turning toddlers into unstoppable murder machines (which requires them to '''''eat babies''''').* DontShootTheMessage: Many, ''many'' anti-abortion activists do not like ''Breaking Dawn.'' Also counts as UnwantedAssistance.* DoubleStandard: Mainly when it comes to Twilight's Fandom in the saying that: "If these were 40-year old men screaming for 17-year old girls, they'd be on [[PaedoHunt "To Catch A Predator"]] so fast it would make your head spin."** The series also repeatedly implies that men should not be held accountable for things that they do when they are very angry or otherwise emotionally overwhelmed.*** Both Edward and Jacob "accidentally" hurt Bella (or come really close to doing so) on at least a few occasions and this is usually excused by the fact that they are male and therefore unable to control certain impulses.*** Most of the other men in the series also do things that could be interpreted in a negative light but usually aren't because they did them in "the heat of" rage/passion/jealousy/lust/etc. But any time a woman steps even the slightest bit out of line she is swiftly and harshly reprimanded for it, usually by the men around her some of whom exhibit the exact same behavior at some point.*** The series implies that ''men'', and only men, should not be held accountable for things they do while angry, or any other time for that matter. Bella's narrative is willing to forgive any man for almost anything he does, and the few times she doesn't, she still describes him in surprisingly positive terms. By comparison, Bella seems to hate women by default, especially non-vampires, and expects them to remain in control of their emotions at all time (except herself) and views women as stupid, shallow, or selfish for being even a little bit emotional about anything. About the only non-vampire woman she doesn't hold in contempt at least a little bit is Angela, and that's mostly because she's too much of a doormat to bother her the way almost all other humans do.** A lot of things the Cullens (TheBeautifulElite) do are considered horrible when anyone else does them.*** Bella also judges all the non-vampires around her very harshly (even when their only crime is having the sort of flaws that any normal human being would) but is endlessly forgiving of the vampires in the Cullen family pretty much no matter what they do.*** The series is greatly biased in favor of the vampires over the werewolves. The vampires are almost always described as insanely beautiful every time one of them is mentioned, and narrative even kisses the asses of the villainous vampires, however the werewolves usually don't get off so well. Bella's narration constantly expresses doubt that the werewolves can handle vampires, even after she finds out that they already have and she personally witnessed one fleeing from the pack in terror. Also, if a werewolf says something negative about vampires, Bella will express in narration feeling outright offended by it, and if it's Jacob saying it, she'll often yell at him and force him to apologize. Whenever a vampire, usually Edward or Alice, says something negative about the werewolves, Bella never says anything to them about it and at most wishes silently that the two sides would get along.** When Leah is heartbroken over Sam and is moody about it, everyone considers her a bitch who should get over it. When Jacob is heartbroken over Bella, everyone holds his hand and doesn't say a cross word to him.** [[http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/post/2850562580/twilight-is-a-lot-of-disturbing-behavior-followed Bella at one point criticizes another girl for only liking Edward for his looks and the fact that he comes from a wealthy family, even while she herself constantly gushes over his physical appearance and hardly ever mentions anything else about him aside from his nice house, cool car, and equally attractive well-to-do family.]]** She's also always rolling her eyes at the few human girls she occasionally hangs out with for being shallow and silly and frivolous, but adores Alice who is, arguably, the embodiment of those qualities. Implying that it's bad to be that way, unless you're a beautiful, wealthy vampire.** The age difference between Bella and Edward arguably invokes this, considering that the older one is a [[MenAreTheExpendableGender male]].** Bella often manipulates the feelings of those around her to get what she wants with no regard to whether or not she is hurting them, but any other woman in the series who acts in this way is framed as a heartless bitch.* DracoInLeatherPants: "Team James" has quite a following. Same for Victoria, particularly for Bella haters.** Aro has become something of this after the ''New Moon'' movie came out and Michael Sheen turned in his LargeHam performance.** Tyler's van. At least it tried.** Jane is also extremely sadistic and otherwise emotionless, but being played by Creator/DakotaFanning increased her fandom.* EnsembleDarkhorse: Many of the side characters.** Carlisle. Some of his fans are among those who otherwise loathe the books. ** Ditto Alice, who counts [[Creator/BobChipman Moviebob]] and Creator/CleolindaJones among her fans. Being played by [[HelloNurse Ashley Greene]] helps just a tad.** Jasper, redeemed BloodKnight. ** On the villains' side, you have [[MagnificentBastard Aro]], though the Volturi in general probably count. [[TheEeyore Marcus]] too, for his [[TheWoobie sad backstory.]]** And [[DefrostingIceQueen Rosalie]] for some, particularly people who dislike Bella.** For the werewolves there's sweet kid Seth and fierce Leah, who has a particularly memorable moment involving a NarrativeProfanityFilter. Jacob too, ignoring his {{jerkass}} moments in ''Eclipse'' and anything after the imprinting.** Sam, thanks to his giant black wolf form being totally badass.** A lot of the moviegoers loved how Charlie was done. Like Leah and Carlisle, even the {{Hatedom}} tends to like him. [[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment The Spoony One]] (referring to him as "mustache dad") even says he's the most sympathetic character throughout all the movies.*** Even the [[Podcast/RiffTrax Rifftrax team]] like him! they also call him Mustache Dad, mostly because mustaches are a RunningGag for them.*** The [[WebVideo/TheAmazingAtheist Distressed Watcher]] says he wishes the movies were centered on Charlie, a silent but resourceful lawman investigating a string of mysterious murders and struggling with single fatherhood while his daughter keeps secrets from him.** Tyler, aka "the guy who almost hit Bella with his van." The van itself too, really.** Bree made people pity her to the point that they wrote an alternate take on her encounter with the Volturi and even went as far as have her be adopted by the Cullens.** Bella's human friends, who seem like the sort of people you genuinely want to hang out with. * EsotericHappyEnding: Jacob's [[spoiler: imprinting on Renesmee, considering he stated it's actually a terrible brainwashing not long before, indeed loses his personality and becomes DemotedToExtra, his imprintee is practically abusive to him, and he had to leave his family and pack for good to live at the Cullens' CondescendingCompassion instead.]]** Not to mention that the Volturi [[spoiler: are still very much alive and kicking, and are now royally pissed off at the Cullens for making them look like idiots. It's outright stated that the Volturi will [[NeverLiveItDown never forgive or forget]] the Cullens' defiance. And even if the Cullens went to war with the Volturi and somehow won, they're the only ones keeping the vampire population in check. Without the Volturi, [[VampireApocalypse vampire society will descend into chaos and anarchy]] pretty quickly]]. * EveryoneIsSatanInHell: Okay, some conservative objections against the book make sense, but there are a lot of people who take the most ''bizarre'' potshots against it. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRM5ihaKWRA According to this video]], Creator/StephenieMeyer ''must'' have intentionally hidden Satanic messages into her series because, among other things, a kid with the last name "Cullen" once escaped a Satanic cult, and the chessboard on the ''Breaking Dawn'' cover has a check pattern ''just like'' the floor in a Masonic lodge.* EvilIsSexy: Victoria in the films, Laurent in the book.** James in the film as well.* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Most likely [[UnfortunateImplications unintentional]]; arguably the whole series. Mostly, the implications that your boyfriend should come before everyone and everything else, being a relatively normal person is lame and makes you lesser than "special" people and if your boyfriend acts like a creepy, controlling stalker, it's just because he ''loves'' you. * FandomRivalry: As mentioned on the main page, ''Twilight'' fans have a ''huge'' rivalry with ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fans, who were [[FriendlyFandoms soon joined]] by the fans of ''Literature/TheHungerGames''. To a lesser extent, fans of ''Literature/TheVampireDiaries'', ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and ''Literature/TheSilverKiss'' have also waged war upon ''Twilight'' for allegedly [[TheyCopiedItSoItSucks ripping-off]] or stealing the thunder of [[OlderThanTheyThink older]] (and [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement in their opinion]], superior) works. * FanonDiscontinuity: If the Amazon.com reviews are any indication, a good portion of the fanbase has excommunicated ''Breaking Dawn''.* FanPreferredCouple: Jacob/Bella, though the {{official couple}} has its own vast devoted fanbase.** Not to mention [[LesYay Alice/Bella]].** Jacob/Leah.** Among Jacob/Leah shippers, Nessie/Seth sounds like a better imprinted couple, given that Seth has a pure mind and already likes vampires and is at least younger, so him waiting for Nessie to grow up is easier to buy as a relationship. Or, alternatively, Nessie/Nahuel, which is even hinted at in the freaking book at the end, despite the whole business with Jacob being Nessie's "soulmate".** Bella/Tyler's Van.** ''A lot'' of people feel the books and movies would be half-way decent if it were Jacob/Edward. Given that Bella is the most boring female character in literature, they're not ''wrong''.** In the movies, Jacob and Alice have more chemistry in a single scene than Alice and Jasper do in any of the films. ** There's a reasonably sized fanbase who ship Aro and Carlisle together, or at the very least [[{{Fanon}} are convinced they were once lovers]]. The fact that they once lived together, Aro found Carlisle fascinating and is still more than a little obsessed with the Cullens, Aro is from Ancient Greece (where homosexuality was more or less socially accepted), and that there's an extended scene in ''Breaking Dawn Part 1'' where Aro is positively ''thrilled'' to get a letter from Carlisle and gets ticked off at his secretary for spelling Carlisle's name wrong just adds [[HoYay more fuel]] to the fire. * {{Fanservice}}: Considering that by the time the fourth movie came out it was extremely common in both popular media, fandom, and anti-fandom to point out the number of times the movies went out of their way to feature Taylor Lautner's bare chest, it's very hard to read Jacob dramatically ripping off his shirt ''in the first thirty seconds'' of ''Breaking Dawn, Part One'' as anything other than the screenwriters' snarky acknowledgement of how silly things had gotten.* FauxSymbolism: The author tries to invoke this with references to the forbidden fruit and the lion and the lamb, but seems to have a poor understanding of what those things mean so it doesn't really work. Especially bad since Creator/StephenieMeyer is a Mormon and presumably went to Sunday school in her youth.** To address the former, it's supposed to be about exciting but dangerous knowledge, and being pulled from the confines of your safe reality forever (finding out vampires are real and the hot, moody boy you've been swooning over is one). But Bella despises living in Forks, looks down on most of the normal people in her life in one way or another, and obviously places little to no value on living the way she is when the story begins (she says she'd gladly die for any of the Cullens' sake so many times it practically becomes a catchphrase). What she stands to gain from hanging around the Cullens (love, power, wealth, simple excitement) far outweighs anything she has to lose, and she never thinks twice about accepting. Having accepted, whenever something bad happens that might reasonably cause her to step back and rethink her situation, she always uses it as a reason to try to go even deeper (I.e. They find out an evil vampire's probably out to get Bella. She presents that as evidence that she needs to be turned into a vampire right away). Eating the apple's her ticket '''into''' paradise, not out.* FoeYay: Like you wouldn't believe. Victoria/Bella, Rosalie/Bella, Rosalie/Jacob, Alice/Jacob and Edward/Jacob are among the most popular.* FunnyAneurysmMoment: ''Breaking Dawn Part 2'' is this now that Kristen and Rob have broken up due to her infidelity. * GirlShowGhetto: While ''Twilight'' has a lot of reasons to be hated, many have started to note that a lot of the hate tends to have a certain DoubleStandard compare to similarly flawed works that are instead targeted towards men. Given how a good number of those who complain about ''Twilight'' tend to focus on elements such as Edward's lack of masculinity, the sparkly skin, and the fact it's popular with young women, rather than the UnfortunateImplications noted above or it's more legitimate flaws, other famous works with similar problems in their writing, such as a number of action, sci-fi, and superhero films (IE, the kind aimed at men), tend to get far less mockery and criticism. * HamAndCheese: Creator/RobertPattinson.** In the film of ''New Moon'', Creator/DakotaFanning managed to rival him despite having a grand total of five lines.** You can really see Pattinson giving up at trying at all in ''Eclipse'' and deciding to just have fun, making his scenes ''far'' more enjoyable than the book counterpart. (Probably helped since in an interview he mentioned being super tired and busy from other projects while filming and barely remembers filming the movie.)** Creator/MichaelSheen as Aro, too, [[OneSceneWonder promptly stealing the show]].*** Especially in the SequelHook of ''Breaking Dawn'' Part 1 *** Not to mention having an absolute blast in Part 2.* HarsherInHindsight: ** When Edward leaves Bella in ''New Moon'', she breaks down and remains almost catatonic for months. This foreshadowed Creator/KristenStewart's reaction to her highly publicized breakup with Creator/RobertPattinson in 2012. ** Some of the more [[UnfortunateImplications unintentionally troubling aspects]] to some of the werewolves’ relationships (Sam ripped half his girlfriend’s face off when she rejected him, Jacob acts like petulant, aggressive {{Jerkass}} around Bella and [[ForcefulKiss forcibly kisses her]] and then there’s ‘imprinting on toddlers’ business…) get even more uncomfortable if you’re aware of the [[https://www.domesticshelters.org/domestic-violence-articles-information/domestic-violence-rampant-among-native-americans#.Wh8vLUqWaUk depressingly]] [[https://nij.gov/journals/277/Pages/violence-against-american-indians-alaska-natives.aspx high rates]] of domestic and sexual violence perpetrated against Native American people. * HilariousInHindsight: ** [[Music/RebeccaBlack Jacob has a sister named Rebecca.]]** Creator/DakotaFanning plays Jane, a vampire, in the film adaptations. Her little sister [[Creator/ElleFanning Elle]] would eventually also play a vampire in Creator/FrancisFordCoppola's 2011 film ''Twixt''.** Two words: [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Twilight Sparkle]].** Melissa Rosenberg, writer of all five film adaptations, later became the show runner for ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', which takes many of the UnfortunateImplications ''Twilight'' is often accused of and plays them all for the drama they'd have in the real world, with a hero who's Bella Swan's polar opposite.** The amount of [[HeteronormativeCrusader conservative Christian]] [[WriterOnBoard agenda-]][[{{Anvilicious}} pushing]] by Meyer in the books, as well as the amount of LesYay Bella gets from other women, is definitely this in light of Kristen Stewart admitting that she [[BiTheWay liked girls]] several years after the release of the final film.** Edward can be compared to Raphael Solano in ''Series/JaneTheVirgin''. Like Edward, he is the Veronica to Michael's Betty, as Edward is the Veronica to Jacob's Betty. They both have the same callous, self-pitying attitude, and families a touch on the bloodthirsty side (in that, Raphael's mother and stepmother are both crime lords). What makes this Hilarious In Hindsight? They share a German voice actor!** In the Japanese dub of the movie, Creator/TakahiroSakurai voices Edward Cullen. This is even funnier if you already know that Sakurai voiced in the Japanese version of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' the main hero Jonathan Morris, a '''VampireHunter'''. He also voiced Rui Mukami, another vampire, in ''AudioPlay/DiabolikLovers'', who is the complete opposite of Edward in every aspect.** The final book in the series is known for being the [[ContestedSequel most polarising]] even amongst hardcore fans and is called '''''[[BrokenBase Breaking]]''''' ''Dawn''. * HollywoodHomely: Bella. She's supposed to be a "plain Jane", yet describes what she's apparently supposed to see as negative attributes in terms of glowing beauty, like "ivory-skinned", "chocolate brown eyes", "slender but soft". This could be {{purple prose}}, or her "plainness" could be like a size 2 complaining how fat she is so everyone will tell her how she's really thin and beautiful. Moreover, her actress Kristen Stewart is a quite good-looking woman and Stephanie Meyer originally wanted ''Creator/EmilyBrowning'' to play Bella. Although, it could simply be that Bella suffers from low self-esteem. She also averts plain in the graphic novel.** There could be some form of in-universe FridgeBrilliance for this - Bella spent most of her life in Arizona where apparently the girls were all tall, tan, athletic, and blonde, the total opposite of what Bella is, so she likely always felt like an awkward ugly duckling. Then she moves to Forks where pale skin is the norm and is seen as beautiful. She came to school expecting to be treated as an outcast like she was in Arizona but instead finds herself welcomed. In her head though, she's still got this narrow picture of what beautiful is and she's spent so long resigning herself to the fact that she isn't like those tall blonde athletes she can't see that she is pretty on her own merits. When she wakes up in the book as a vampire, she expects to be beautiful but is shocked to find she doesn't look that much different, meaning she's always been pretty, she was just incapable of seeing it. So, yes, self-image issues could be the root of the dissonance.* HoYay: Loads of this, usually unintentional, between Edward and most other males such as Jacob. One assumes that Creator/StephenieMeyer was unaware of the implications of biting pillows, breaking headboards, and Carlisle selecting a handsome teenage boy as his "companion" in vampirism (rather than say, a pretty woman).** The Romanian vampires, Vladmir and Stefan. Not only do they live and travel together, but they finish each other's sentences.** Believe it or not, Creator/StephenieMeyer's joke story "Breaking Down" included Mike leaving Bella for Eric.** The Volturi. Primarily because the leaders are a bunch of Greek and Roman dudes who all constantly hang out together in lieu of their wives, who are barely mentioned. Aro in particular, considering his obsession with Carlisle and the fact he murdered his own sister to keep her husband, Marcus, from leaving him...** Or all the Riley/Diego subtext as seen in [[http://shaolina.livejournal.com/ "Life Packs A Punch"]].** The scene with Jacob [[ItMakesSenseInContext stripping down]] in front of Charlie in the woods is filled with this.** A fair bit between Aro and Carlisle. As mentioned in FanPreferredCouple, they used to live together and Aro seems very, very fond of Carlisle and his family, to the point of obsession. Aro is apparently married to woman named [[AllThereInTheManual Sulpicia]], but he barely mentions her and is never seen interacting with her, preferring the company of his male companions, which once included Carlisle. Carlisle himself once painted Aro as a god and protests Edward's suggestion that Aro is behind the newborn army, apparently believing him incapable of hurting them that way. Aro seems rather desperate to make amends with Carlisle after the almost-battle in ''Breaking Dawn'', asking if this will hurt their friendship at all and clearly still thinks fondly of him after centuries. Carlisle seems to respect Aro too and teaches his family to respect and obey the Volturi. Then there's the whole thing about Carlisle first meeting Aro as a relatively young vampire, with the older and more experienced Aro (who originated from Ancient Greece) taking him under his wing to teach him their ways. Not to mention that after leaving the Volturi, Carlisle selected Edward - a handsome teen boy - as his new companion. *** ''And'' the whole part about Carlisle leaving Aro due to a disagreement over the morality of feeding off humans is rather reminiscent of [[Literature/TheVampireChronicles another pair]] [[Film/InterviewWithTheVampire of vampires]] whose relationship was ''dripping'' in HoYay. * HypeBacklash: Inevitable when one of the world's biggest little romantic GuiltyPleasures gets hyped by a good half of the people you know as some sort of epic good-versus-evil story with vampires and werewolves, and oh, there's some romance... and they fail to warn you about the sparkling vampire thing to boot. It got even worse when ''Breaking Dawn'' came out.** Many in the Hatedom have professed that they wouldn't have hated it so much if the fans hadn't gotten so overzealous about Edward being the perfect guy or the insanity of the Edward vs. Jacob war when it was clear Jacob never had a chance.** Another fuel for the hatedom is how vampires are portrayed given Meyer barely seems to understand the lore. Had she made up a unique name, or maybe had them adopt the name, at least ''some'' of the hatred would dial down.* IdiotPlot: Almost every plot point in the first book is brought about by one or more characters being stupid. Hasn't Carlisle ever heard of homeschooling?** In ''Eclipse'', the Cullens, Bella, and the wolves wonder who could be behind the strange vampire activity in Seattle. While they also know full well that Victoria is in the area and trying to kill Bella.** A large chunk of the conflict in the latter half of ''New Moon'' could have been averted, had anyone thought to use a telephone--or had Jacob not decided to answer Bella's phone for her (which was a JerkAss thing to do anyway, since she was sitting ''right there''). They also could have been sensible enough to go on more than just Alice's vision, since she herself had admitted her powers weren't always precise or accurate. (One can't really accuse any of the Cullen "kids" of much sense, but Carlisle was a practical person who probably should have thought of that.)*** Or why Edward didn't call ''Alice's cellphone'', seeing as he knew she had one and knew that she was in Forks and could definitely say if Bella was dead or not. He even comments later that he should have done that!** And there's [[IdiotPlot/{{Twilight}} plenty more]] where that came from.* InferredHolocaust: Breaking Dawn ends with the Volturi admitting defeat and leaving the Cullens alone and Bella and Edward being left to have a happy marriage for eternity, with no one else wanting to shanghai members of the family or [[spoiler: kill their daughter]]. They all apparently have forgotten that Aro touched Edward's hand during the climax, giving him access to all of Edward's thoughts so he now has knowledge of all of the powers of the gathered vampires, including Bella, who was supposed to be the secret ace-in-the-hole. That, coupled with the book's insistence that the Volturi would never give up trying to have their way, has led a number of people to comment that Bella and Edward's happily ever after will probably be interrupted when the Volturi come back to kill them which the Cullens won't be able to see coming because the Volturi now know how to block out Alice's visions completely and are going to visit the people they need to be around to do so.* InformedAttribute: Bella is supposedly very intelligent: other characters talk about how smart she is a lot and the story frequently mentions her getting straight A's, but she never actually does anything that demonstrates above average intelligence. In fact in dangerous or stressful situations, when a high intellect might prove beneficial, she usually just grabs her first emotional impulse and goes with it without stopping for an instant to think about the potential consequences; things only turn out o.k. through sheer luck/coincidence or through the interference of Edward, Jacob or one of the Cullens.** Bella is also described by the author to be well-read and having already read all the classics, though we only ever read about her dealing with the most famous classics (''Pride & Prejudice'', ''Romeo and Juliet'', ''Wuthering Heights'', ''Jane Eyre'', etc) and only when they are currently reading said book for school. She also seems to repeatedly misinterpret the meaning the authors were going for or flat out misunderstanding what the book is actually about, like saying that ''Wuthering Heights'' was about Catherine and Heathcliff's romance [[note]] technically, it ''is'', but it's not meant to be ''happy'', ''healthy'' example of a romantic relationship [[/note]], or stating ''Romeo and Juliet'' to be a wonderful love story [[note]] that's the one where two kids ''killed themselves'' because of their families' petty hatred for each other. Or possibly [[BlackComedy a comedy]], depending on your interpretation [[/note]]. ([[CriticalResearchFailure Though this might be a failure on Meyer's side]].) ** The author also seemed to be trying to convince the reader that Bella is a headstrong, independent, modern woman despite the fact that throughout the entire story she almost never actively tries to take control of her own life; she makes a few vain attempts to seem self-possessed (she occasionally argues with Edward or puts up a little resistance before giving in), but Edward usually winds up making her decisions for her in the end.** Edward also talks a lot about how good and kind and pure and virtuous Bella is (IncorruptiblePurePureness), but most of her actions are either completely selfish, or impulsive reactions to external stimuli; the majority of the things she does that would conventionally be considered indicators of virtue or selflessness are things that Edward forces her to do or things that she's doing out of her selfish desire to be with Edward (usually only with regard to how they affect Edward and herself, with no consideration for anyone else.) Left to her own devices, Bella is childishly selfish and reckless.*** The fact is, ''everything'' about Bella's personality is defined in terms of what she hates and/or holds in contempt. Even the things she ostensibly ''does'' like or care about (e.g. Edward's looks, Alice's company, sparkly vampires, having her "true love") are distinguished solely by how they '''lack''' the flaws she carps about in everything else -- which is, after all, what "perfect" really means -- or by how miserable the prospect of ''not'' having them there will make her. Small wonder that she wants to be a vampire: it's not that she likes vampires, it's that she ''loathes'' imperfect humans and her own mortality.** Vampires are supposed to be highly intelligent and once Bella has been turned into one she often informs us of how fast her brain works now and how much smarter she is than any human. However she is extremely slow on the uptake in most situations and the reader can easily figure out what's going on in any given situation before Bella connects the dots.*** This goes for all vampires. They seem to utterly lack the capacity for critical thinking and the reader always catches on to what is going on and understands who or what is behind something before the allegedly super intelligent Meyerpires do. Furthermore when faced with a threat (as for instance finding out that the volturi are coming in ''Breaking Dawn'') they react by freezing up and showing no signs of doing any thinking for several hours, as if their brains cannot process stressful information very easily.** Carlisle is repeatedly said to be incredibly compassionate but (apart from being a doctor) never seems to show any concern for anyone outside his own "family"; in many instances he is even shown passively allowing innocent people to suffer and die, deciding that Edward and Bella's relationship is more deserving of his attention.*** How about the fact that he steals O-negative blood from the hospital for Bella's behalf. The original intention seemed to be to have on hand in case she needs it during childbirth, but the reasonable thing to do in that case would be to test her for her actual blood type and acquire it when her due date approaches (blood doesn't hold up for all that long, and while you certainly ''can'' receive O-negative blood regardless of your actual blood type, type specific is much more suitable). Then he has Bella drinking it but he keeps going for the O-negative blood, even though it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference what type the blood is if it's going into her digestive system. Now, considering that you cannot purchase blood for your own personal usage, the only way he could have gotten it was to ''steal'' it. So the allegedly incredibly compassionate Carlisle repeatedly steals blood from the blood bank, stealing only the universal donor type which is needed for trauma situations when there isn't time to run the tests required for type specific blood, and he does so before he even ought to be needing it. Thus leaving patients in need of the blood in danger of not getting any, which can cost them their lives, thereby putting numerous people at risk of dying for Bella's sake. Not to mention that the people who donated their blood did not do it so that Bella Swan could drink it from her sippy cup. The lack of compassion and concern for human life displayed by Carlisle here is downright staggering.* ItWasHisSled: Believe it or not, Edward being a vampire is supposed to be the major twist of book one. In fact, ''Eclipse'' is the only book not to spend its whole first half building to a twist everyone already knows; the others are that Jacob is a werewolf, and Bella has a baby that Jacob imprints on.** In some copies of the first novel, it straight up tells you [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil Edward is a vampire on the blurb]].** ''Eclipse'' had one - it was that the vampire population surge in Seattle was an army being created by Victoria to offset the twenty-some supernatural creatures protecting Bella. That one was arguably the worst of the lot, since Bella had known for two-thirds of the previous book that Victoria was out for revenge on her. But the Cullens apparently thought Victoria wasn't capable of figuring out she was outnumbered and getting reinforcements. Even though Jasper once did the exact same thing she was doing.* LauncherOfAThousandShips: Bella. She's been shipped with half the cast by now, including ''all'' the Cullens (that includes [[LesYay the ladies]]), members of [[FoeYay the Volturi]], [[CargoShip Tyler's van]], and [[CrossOverShip characters outside]] the ''Twilight'' universe, including [[Series/TheVampireDiaries Stefan Salvatore]], [[Series/HemlockGrove Roman Godfrey]], and ''[[Literature/TheVampireChronicles Lestat]]''.* LesYay:** The Amazon vampire coven (two vampire ladies who live together in the jungle and are very close).** Alice and Bella. Their reunion in ''New Moon'' is rife with this.** In ''Eclipse'', Leah and Bella when Leah tells Jacob that she [[spoiler:had a dream about kissing Bella]]. We are supposed to see this as a natural result of the werewolf telepathy but... not everybody does.** Even with Esme and Bella. Anyone remember her calling Bella "Dearest Bella", like, right against her skin?* MemeticMutation: [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4568670/1/Chagrin CHAGRIN CHAGRIN CHAGRIN CHAGRIN CHAGRIN CHAGRIN CHAGRIN]]** Also, it's nearly mandatory to Photoshop any picture of Edward Cullen to include [[BishieSparkle sparkles]] (see pic). On forums and boards that allow it (such as [=LiveJournal=]), sometimes even just his ''name'' is formatted to sparkle.** Association with [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Twilight Sparkle]] is also popular, for obvious reasons.** Edward seeing Bella for the first time is sometimes interpreted... [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLnJFykb6G0 differently]].** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU4_zpoXA38 "This is the skin of a killer, Bella!" *sparkles*]]** Pattinson's "greasy" real-world hair seems to be approaching meme status. If a picture of him is posted somewhere, someone will mention his hair.** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctlEBHDROAw "JACOB, KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON!" "NO!"]]** And then there's the habit haters have of coming up with alternate shipping "Teams" (i.e., "Team Tyler's van", "Team Mike Newton", etc.)** "Still a better love story than Twilight."[[labelnote:Explanation]]A common quip nowadays in response to {{Crack Pairing}}s. Or just relationships that end badly.[[/labelnote]]** [[HeadDesk TWILIGHT]] [[https://youtu.be/OzkLhREadCQ ISN'T LITERATURE!]]** Aro's {{Squee}} over Renesmee ''used'' to be funny.** "No one hates Twilight more than Robert Pattinson does" has become this, since he's a rare, open hater of a franchise he ''himself'' stars in.** Due to his hair, Jasper has picked up the FanNickname "[[Creator/TheMarxBrothers Harpo]]"; Podcast/RiffTrax in particular calls him that.** Jokes about Series/{{Buffy|TheVampireSlayer}} and the Series/{{Doctor|Who}} killing Edward Cullen are popular -- the former due to Buffy's status as a VampireHunter, and the latter due to the presence of both Creator/RobertPattinson and Creator/DavidTennant in ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''.* {{Narm}}: Has [[Narm/{{Twilight}} its own page]].* NarmCharm: Some fans like the ''Twilight Saga'' simply for its cheesiness.* NeverLiveItDown: The sparkling vampires. Also, the movie was enough of a hit that the actors are now tied to their characters.* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: Before, you'd be much more likely to find it placed in the Teen section - usually huddled in the back of the bookstores, [[SciFiGhetto behind all the Fantasy and Science Fiction sections, even.]] Now? Bookstores have an ''entire'' section dedicated to Teen Paranormal Romance; the film franchise, along with the books, find themselves regularly on the bestseller lists. * OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Rosalie's brief summary of how she went ''Film/KillBill'' on the people who gang-raped her could have made a very interesting book or movie, but sadly all the best and bloodiest parts are left out when she recounts it - in all of three paragraphs - to Bella. For those who haven't read it, she puts on a wedding dress and kills all of the men one by one, saving her former fiancé, who is behind a barricaded door and protected by two guards, for last. It's easily one of the most interesting parts of ''Eclipse'', and it's not even described.** In ''Twilight'', we don't see James getting killed because ''Bella passes out just as it starts to happen''!** In both ''Eclipse'' and ''The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner'', we miss the entire battle between the Cullens and wolves and the newborn army. This is especially silly in Bree Tanner's novella, given that ''she'' is a newborn and thus ''should have been at the battle herself''.** For antis, Leah [[WhatTheHellHero calling out Bella for stringing Jacob along]] in ''Breaking Dawn''. Sadly, since the section's from Jacob's point of view it's only mentioned.* OlderThanTheyThink: Let's just say that the series is not as original as some of the more zealous fans and haters say it is.** Most fans of the series seem to be under the impression that VegetarianVampire is a new innovation that Meyer introduced to the vampire genre when, in reality, the concept was used by Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' and many others long before the ''Twilight'' series came out. This also goes for vampires walking in daylight, having luminous skin and developing emotional attachments to humans.** On the flip side, a lot of haters blame ''Twilight'' for making vampires sexy and glamorous in the public's eye instead of monstrous, when the [[Film/Dracula1931 1931 "Dracula" film]] depicted the bloodsucker as a titillating figure (just look at the movie poster) and other vampire-centered media like ''Buffy'', ''Castlevania'', ''The Vampire Chronicles'', and many, '''many''' others play up vampires as sexually desirable (plus, the two don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive). [[VampiresAreSexGods There's even a trope for it]].** Even vampires being mineral-based isn't a new idea, as Creator/TimPowers used it in ''Literature/TheStressOfHerRegard''.** Before Renesmee Cullen, there has been in literature a [[HumanMomNonhumanDad half-human]] supernatural baby that grows up and matures to an adult in a fraction of the usual time, has incredible powers, and [[UncannyValley creeps out some people]]. Who is it? ''[[Literature/TheDunwichHorror Wilbur Whately]]''.** There is an animated series from TheNineties called "The Ketchup Vampires". The heroes are a family of {{Vegetarian Vampire}}s whose son falls in love with a human schoolgirl. The girl's name is, [[HilariousInHindsight hilariously enough]], Bella. Both are a bit younger than in ''Twilight'' though.** Look up the 1990 novel ''Literature/TheSilverKiss'' for young adult vampire fiction, the main differences being the human girl learns to accept mortality, the vampire boy actually does get released from his immortality (through his own choosing no less), and the ending is more bittersweet.* {{Padding}}: The books have lots of padding such as Creator/StephenieMeyer describing how beautiful Edward was and how much Bella loved him and the step-by-step descriptions of Bella getting up, brushing her teeth, picking out her clothes, making breakfast for her and Charlie, [[ExaggeratedTrope closing all the pop-up boxes after running her web browser]], etc. The most extreme example of padding was in the second book (''New Moon''), where there are (literally) eight blank pages in the middle of the book. It essentially goes blank when Edward decides he must remove all traces of his life from Bella's.** A frequent criticism leveled at the ([[MovieMultipack first half of the]]) [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] of ''Breaking Dawn''--since the filmmakers decided to split the book into two movies, despite how the novel could have been easily squeezed into a single film, Part 1 is packed to the brim with montages to pad out the running time to just under two hours. * PeripheryDemographic: The [=TwiMoms=], as well as the aforementioned gay following.** Also, [[http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=82779 racial purists.]]** Hardened convicts base their views on romance on this book.** A number of males struggled to watch through the movie, [[JustHereForGodzilla just to see the admittedly impressive action scenes]], [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome which unlike the books]], actually are shown onscreen.* PoesLaw: To this day, people debate whether or not Stephanie Meyer is either a very lucky but very poor author, or a very, very good {{Troll}}.* PortmanteauCoupleName: [[FoeYay Jakeward]]. [[HilarityEnsues It's not too hard to guess who they are]]. Alice/Bella goes by the name of [[LesYay Bellice]], while Rosalie/Bella is called [[FoeYay Rosella]]. And some people actually refer to Bella/Edward as Bedward.** There's always what the slash shippers come up with. Some examples being: [[http://community.livejournal.com/jaspard/ Jaspard]], [[http://community.livejournal.com/jaspeth/ Jaspeth]], and [[http://community.livejournal.com/marcus_seth/ Mareth]]. The former two of which have rather impressive followings, with Jaspard being one of the more popular slash pairings.* ProtectionFromEditors: Quality of the writing aside, the sheer amount of basic research fail in the books suggests this. Not just the [[ArtisticLicenseBiology biology]] fail, or the MisplacedWildlife, but the ''west coast'' of [[ArtisticLicenseGeography Brazil]]? Whatever else any editors might or might not have done, fact-checking and RealLife research they did not. Given how Meyer goes on and on about how much she hated to cut the few scenes she did (and how she put said scenes on her website, spelling errors and all), that seems rather likely.** This also happens with the graphic novel, even though Meyer didn't even do that one. Young Kim, the artist, wrote about how her editor would have her cut out a scene for pacing reasons, only for Meyer to convince her to put the scene back in.* PurpleProse: Though Creator/StephenieMeyer writes at a regular teen-reading level, she suddenly becomes very poetic when describing Edward's appearance. Also, Edward Cullen whenever he attempts to say something romantic.** Scholastic suggests an entirely different [[http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/viewWorkDetail.do?workId=1156640/ reading level]]. * RetroactiveRecognition:** [[Series/ZNation Mike Newton later became a zombie hunter, still obsessing over a girl.]]** [[Creator/RamiMalek Benjamin]] [[MrRobot went on to become a socially anxious hacker working to bring down the biggest conglomerate in the world.]]** [[Series/TrueBlood Marcus moved to New Orleans to take part in the vampire government there]] and then [[Series/VanHelsing became a vampire hunter]].** [[Film/{{Descendants}} Seth was banished to an island because his father tried to conquer Agrabah and became an all-powerful genie]].* RomanticPlotTumor: Ironically, many critics of the series complain that the story would have been far more interesting had the author only devoted more time to the secondary characters and less to the Edward/Jacob/Bella love triangle and Edward and Bella's relationship drama, which seemed stale and boring compared to the far more original, provocative personalities and backstories of the secondary characters.** There have even been people on Deviantart and Website/LiveJournal who post "edited" plots that actually ''aren't'' hate-oriented. A memorable one suggested that there should have been hints of James' coven's existence earlier and that Bella should have thought Edward was the reason for those hints, making her wonder about the relationship instead of just diving right in without complications. Another pointed out that the books are a good example of when the romance should really be a subplot.* RelationshipWritingFumble: Except in visual form... The scene where Jacob and Bella are dancing in Part 1 of ''Breaking Dawn'' has more intimacy and romance and pure connection than the original dance with Edward at the actual wedding.** This is consistent with the books. One of the biggest complaints Team Jacob have with the eventual outcome is that Bella and Jacob actually have some level of chemistry together.** A bigger example is Jacob and Leah in ''Breaking Dawn''. Many, ''many'' readers/viewers consider them just right for each other due to their interactions. But nope, according to Stephanie Meyer, they're "just friends", thus Leah ends up with no-one and Jacob ends up with [[{{Squick}} Bella's daughter]].* RootingForTheEmpire:** The first book has James, a tracker who becomes obsessed with wanting to kill and eat Bella. His girlfriend Victoria is also this in the third book.** The books put a lot of emphasis on the Volturi being a power-hungry dictatorship that ruthlessly oppresses the vampire world. The trouble is, the only restriction they apparently put on the vampires is to not be noticed by humans, which is given a reasonable justification (human technology could potentially kill vampires) and very lightly limits the ability for a vampire to kidnap or kill a human. WordOfGod and the series also show that vampires are more or less like animals if left to their own devices, so it makes it difficult to see the Volturi as dictators instead of a group of people who are trying to establish some sort of order and structure to their world. Meyer tries to make the Volturi's corruptness really apparent in ''Breaking Dawn'' when it's hammered in that they'll arrive to kill Renesmee and in no way listen to reason... only for them to bring witnesses, reasonably listen to evidence, and leave without killing anyone.*** It is made clear that the witnesses and plans for listening to evidence were really for show, as they were planning to put them all under a mist and kidnap Alice and whoever else they wanted for their powers. Only Bella's shield actually protects them from this.*** It's also the prosecuted vampires who come to that conclusion. Consider [[http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/621995.html this]]. Basically, the Volturi's methods may not be totally angelic, but they've also prevented a vampire population explosion that'd put a strain on their feeding stock, but also kept the feeding stock which is now equipped to hunt them to extinction from finding out they exist. And as mentioned above, by their nature most vampires are basically animals ruled by their hungers and passions. Even though the book makes a point that the Cullens are so unique for remembering how to still love, they're still supremely arrogant toward non-vampires (toward the end of ''Breaking Dawn'' Bella thinks it would be "a shame" to have to kill someone) and think nothing of flaunting their superiority. Mainly in displays of wealth which should stick out like a sore thumb in a tiny town, where a family of seven has only one breadwinner. At the end of the story it mentions all the Cullens' allies maybe reuniting one day to overthrow the Volturi once and for all and presents that as a heroic happy ending, but the books also portray them as the only thing keeping vampires from giving into their urges completely and exposing themselves to a world that would hunt them to the last one. TL;DR, the Volturi are written as being mean for telling vampires not to kill as many people as they want, but they're also written as the only thing keeping humans from learning vampires exist and wiping vampires out.* TheScrappy: ** Bella Swan. Many fans, whether they really enjoy the book's content or just see it as SoBadItsGood, really do not like Bella. Many a reader views her as a flat, boring CanonSue at best; an [[ManipulativeBitch emotionally manipulative]], [[ItsAllAboutMe selfish]] and [[JerkAss obnoxious bitch]] at worst, who gets everything she ever wanted without having to really work for it and doing little but [[{{Wangst}} whining]] and [[DamselScrappy needing to be rescued]] the entire series. Some readers didn't start really disliking her until ''Breaking Dawn'', believing that after she became a vampire, she became [[SuetifulAllAlong ridiculously overpowered, beautiful and special]] and stopped being relatable. ** There are also those who hate Edward ''and'' Jacob. While [[DieForOurShip each is the scrappy to the other side]], some people are sick of the merchandise fuel despite the ending of the series being determined before the first movie came out. Edward in particular is despised for being a [[{{Wangst}} spectacularly whiny]] vampire who barely '[[YourVampiresSuck acts like a real vampire]]', as well as some of his behavior towards Bella coming across as a bit creepy or borderline abusive. That, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and apparently hating music from]] TheSixties and especially TheSeventies, [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking and calling]] [[TheEighties 80s]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking music just "bearable"]]. ** Renesmee is probably hated by both fans and haters. She's an obvious CreatorsPet and ruined things for [[spoiler: [[DieForOurShip Jacob/Bella]] and [[DieForOurShip Jacob/Leah shippers]]]]. * {{Sequelitis}}: Both the books and the films get hit with this, especially the latter. The first book is more or less viewed as a flawed and overly-long, yet entertaining paranormal romance story for teens. The sequels, though, starting with ''New Moon'', are generally viewed less favourably. The books get [[DoorStopper progressively longer]] but don’t quite come up with the plot points to compensate, leading to lots of {{Padding}} and contrived, drawn-out relationship drama to create ‘conflict’. The film adaptions after the first one tend to reflect this, with the exception of, perhaps, ''Breaking Dawn Part 2'', which is seen as [[SurprisinglyImprovedSequel one of the most entertaining films in the franchise]], probably because of the added fight sequences and twelve minute long battle in the finale (which was [[AntiClimax absent]] from the novel). ''Breaking Dawn Part 1'' is widely viewed as the worst of the lot; the novel it's based on is a ContestedSequel where nothing much happens in the first half and the decision to split the films in two was seen as a blatant cash grab. * ShipsThatPassInTheNight: There's a surprising amount of people who ship Leah with Demetri (the Volturi's tracker). The only scene where they're even in the same ''vicinity'' is at the end of ''Breaking Dawn'' for the [[AntiClimax battle-where-nothing-happens]]. ** There's also Renesmee and Nahuel.* ShipToShipCombat: ''Twilight'''s fandom was home to one of the most notorious shipping wars in recent memory. The conflict between Team Edward (Bella/Edward shippers) and Team Jacob (Bella/Jacob shippers) got nasty very quickly, with numerous hate fics, flame wars, essay-length rants on why their side was better etc. This was, of course, milked for all it was worth by the filmmakers, especially in [[TheMerch merchandising]]. To this day, some fans are [[BrokenBase divided]] over which pairing they prefer.* ShowDontTell: Advice that someone should have given Meyer at some point in her writing career.** This happens a lot when it comes to characterization; instead of having characters actions indicate what sort of people they are, Meyer usually just has the characters describe each other to Bella. *** Usually it's a member of the Cullen family describing another member of the Cullen family to Bella, Jacob describing a member of the wolf pack to Bella, or one of Bella's class mates describing a member of one of those two groups to Bella (in fact Bella's friends at school seem to exist solely for this purpose). *** This can get problematic when a characters actions do not fit (or even directly contradict) the way the other characters describe them and yet Bella continues to react to them as though they are the way they were described, it creates the impression that Bella will believe whatever she is told even if reality doesn't support it.** Instead of showing some sort of natural progression of Edward and Bella's relationship, having it develop in a plausible way at a plausible pace and having them go through actual experiences together that would make the audience understand why their feelings for each other are so strong, Meyer just has them talk prematurely and incessantly about how in love they are, it's literally the second conversation they have (after they've only known each other for about two weeks mind you) and almost every conversation after that. The expectation on the author's part seems to be that just their repeated insistence that they're truly and deeply in love will be enough to get the audience emotionally invested in the fate of their relationship.*** They do have one generic "getting to know you" type conversation, but that's orchestrated by Edward after he's already decided that he's in love with her and is rushed through and written in such sparse detail that it feels like an after thought.*** Only two years into the relationship, Bella thinks it's appropriate to declare that the love she has for Edward is the greatest love of all time, somehow beating out the likes of couples who have been together for ''centuries''.** It also seems as though the only reason the author gave certain characters psychic abilities or enabled them to read minds is so that they would be able to know what it was necessary for them to know in order to move the plot forward (without her having to explain how they knew it) and so they could give exposition when necessary, usually to fill in plot holes or to save the author from having to indicate how a character is feeling through their actions (because it's far easier to simply have Edward instantly know how they're feeling). *** This is very obvious when you note that those psychic abilities only work when it facilitates the plot, for example: Alice has psychic visions with perfect clarity when it will lead to the main characters knowing something that they need to know in order for the plot to move forward (the newborn army) but when her knowing something would hinder the plot or make a big moment less dramatic (Edward's suicide attempt in response to falsely being told that Bella is dead) her visions suddenly become ambiguous and hazy for some reason. All her "blind spots" just happen to be really plot convenient. It's especially {{egregious}} in ''Breaking Dawn''; at one point, she's using Jacob's presence to deliberately block out her visions (because she can't see the werewolves, something that's a major plot point in ''New Moon''), but later on has no problem using her ability while he's in the ''same room''. It's one of the many things that drove even the fans up the wall.*** Also, Edward's mind reading ability seems to exist solely so that he can explain the actions of other characters when they don't make sense, for example: in the first film, Bella (like much of the audience) wonders what motivation James has for chasing after her and Edward is conveniently able to explain it because he had read James' mind. Though the reason winds up not making much sense anyway.*** Also the members of the Volturi whose power is to see the strength of relationships. It's explained briefly that this does have a strategic function, but it's first seen being used to remind us how true and pure and enduring Bella and Edward's love is, so that's the usage that sticks with the reader.** Plenty is said about how Leah is this vindictive harpy who won't graciously step aside and let her ex be happy with her maid of honor and how she's so ''mean'' to the rest of the pack. The only thing the reader actually sees is how vicious the pack is to her, how she's being forced to live in her ex's mind while he constantly thinks about how much he loves the woman Leah used to see as her sister, the pack's DoubleStandard regarding her and Jacob, Leah pointing out things that are actually very logical, and her actively taking steps to improve her situation. The end result is Leah turning into the poster child for UnintentionallySympathetic.* SilentMajority: StatisticallySpeaking, this is actually a ''very'' successful franchise. The way the internet talks about it? There are no fans about them. Yet nowadays, people are much more likely to run into haters than fans... clearly there are a lot of people who like this franchise, yet feel no need to scream about it on the internet. (Especially since {{fan hater}}s will chase them out.) * SnarkBait: For a sizable fraction of those following it.* SoBadItsGood: A significant portion of the series' internet fanbase enjoys the books because of the melodramatic plot and [[BishieSparkle sparkling]].** The commercials involved with Burger King (especially the commercials for ''Eclipse'') can qualify.* SpecialEffectsFailure: Many in TheFilmOfTheBook, including a sparkling vampire who looks a lot more like he's covered in sweat, and '''''way''''' too much pale makeup on the Cullens. Said pale makeup also would stop at the neck or fail to cover the ears, particularly with Bella in the hospital scene.** Most distracting was the indescribably abysmal wire-works for the jumping bits that can be easily spotted.** Jacob's absurdly obvious hair weave (until he gets his ImportantHaircut).** The special effects in the second film were significantly better in most aspects. Just so long as you ignore the werewolf transformations...** The notorious CGI baby in ''Breaking Dawn Part 2''. As the guys from Podcast/RiffTrax put it:-->"Jack-Jack from ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' looked less digital than this thing!"** It still managed to be an improvement over the [[UncannyValley nightmare-inducing]] animatronic baby they were originally going to use.** By ''Breaking Dawn Part 2'', they just seemed to give up entirely, as there are several scenes with vampires standing around in broad daylight without so much as a shimmer, a particularly egregious example being the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEoZJ_xDAlg final scene with Bella and Edward in the meadow]]. * StrangledByTheRedString: The series has this both {{in-universe}} with the concept of "imprinting", which means this can be done to werewolves as soon as the plot demands (arguably, all the examples in book 3 were only to prepare the reader for the last one), and out-of-universe with Bella and Edward's relationship. Edward acts surly and moody toward Bella for the first half of the book, and yet Bella decides that she's "unconditionally and irrevocably in love with [Edward]" ''right after she realizes that he's a vampire who thirsts after her blood'', and is completely devoted to him from that point on, even in the face of Edward's own warnings about how he could ''kill'' her. Just how devoted is she? She's willing to give up her human life without any second thoughts to be with him forever after what can't be any more than a month of knowing him, and instantly leaps back into his arms after he renders her ''practically comatose'' by leaving her without explanation. ''And'' her interactions with Edward after the vampire "reveal" consist almost entirely of them repeatedly professing their love to one another and her even more repeatedly being "dazzled" by Edward's glorious beauty.** This is arguably furthered in the films, when in their "romantic" scenes, they both just look bored and uncomfortable.** Likewise, in ''The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner'', with Bree and Diego and, later, Freddie. Bree and Diego interact for one night, she spends most of it afraid that he's going to kill her, and by morning they seemingly are madly in love with each other. The same goes for Freddie. Since it's from Bree's point of view and the "relationships" between her and the guys are so muted, it's possible that we're supposed to see it as her mistaking simple friendship for love (which would fit with her background of being abused and neglected), except that nothing ever indicates this and she acts almost exactly the same way Bella does, including [[spoiler:being perfectly alright to die when she finds out he's gone, because life without him isn't worth living.]]* StrawmanHasAPoint: ** In the novel ''New Moon'', Bella is annoyed that Jessica won't talk to her, and thinks that Jessica is being petty and evil. This is after Bella has ignored everyone for four months, used Jessica to get Charlie off her back, ditched her shortly into the movie to pine over Edward, and then nearly frightened Jessica to death by walking up to a very dangerous-looking biker in a bad part of town that Jessica clearly wanted to avoid, all because Bella thought it may be the same one that Edward rescued her from before.** In ''Breaking Dawn'', Leah calls Bella out on some of her more selfish actions in trying to manipulate and keep Jacob with her despite knowing full well how much it hurts Jacob to be around her knowing that she's chosen to die and become an undead monstrosity with Edward over a life with him. Even Bella admits that she's being selfish, but [[IgnoredEpiphany chooses to keep doing it anyway]]. Everyone else gets angry at Leah for upsetting Bella, [[UngratefulBastard including the guy Leah was trying to stand up for]]. And any point Leah made is completely forgotten.** Also, the part where Aro says that humans now have technology that could be used to hurt or kill vampires, so since there's no way of knowing that Renesmee will always be able to keep vampires a secret she's a vulnerability. The response to this is something along the lines of "Aro is a big mean jerk who just wants to destroy the Cullen family for loving each other" and nobody bothers to refute his point until Alice conveniently shows up with another half-vampire. Aro is actually kind of right, though, especially since Renesmee's superpower involves sharing her thoughts with people—that could easily develop into something that'd make it hard for her to keep secrets if she gets more powerful as she grows older (if she ever experiences any PowerIncontinence she could end up accidentally sharing random things with random humans). *** Let's also not forget that Bella finds out she has the ability to project her power over an area. Since Renesmee's power is suspected to be basically an inversion of her mother's, who's to say she couldn't be capable of projecting her thoughts not just into a person she touches, but everyone within a given area? And on top of that, the full scope of Bella's abilities were held back by her self-doubt until she was angry enough to overcome it. Renesmee, on the other hand, seems unencumbered by any such baggage. With all that little encounter was revealing about how much vampires might not know about themselves, it's hard to blame the Volturi for being cautious, especially with a family of known rule-breakers.** Charlie gets both this and InformedWrongness. His daughter is creepily obsessed with a guy who has never displayed any attributes aside from being equally creepily obsessed with her and being an asshole and also gives him no reason to assume he isn't an abuser (which, by real world standards, he is). The narrative pretty clearly wants the reader to side against Charlie, even when Bella and Edward team up to casually manipulate and bully him into letting her do whatever she wants, and despite the fact that Charlie really hadn't been wrong about ''anything'' in the entire story. *** Goes into TearJerker territory in New Moon when he's trying to get Bella help when she's clearly depressed. He points out (correctly) that she's just going through the motions and that it would be better if she lived with her mother rather than staying in the town that has too many painful memories. And the readers are supposed to side with Bella, who refuses to move on with her life and even exploits Jacob's infatuation with her, because the only way she can find any measure of happiness is playing games with her life which causes her to hallucinate Edward telling her to stop risking her life.*** But wait, it gets sadder. Because not only is Charlie desesperaly trying to get Bella out of her depression (in a dialogue that everyone who tried to get a friend/family member out of their depression wil recognize as something they said), but he's also directly talking about the day when his wife left him with Bella, a memory that hurt him even years after and he's on the verge of tears during all of it. And Bella completly ignore his concern, almost doesn't pay attention to him and then proceed to manipulate one of her classmates to "get him off [her] back". It's hard to not feel for Charlie. * StrawVulcan: Any character who tries to convince Bella to think rationally and make practical decisions as opposed to blindly following her heart is usually treated as an enemy and in the end Bella's flat out refusal to be logical or rational, using the fact that she's in love as a justification for making decisions that even she openly admits are not wise, winds up making all of her dreams come true.** This is of course treated as a triumph of the 'wisdom' of love over the bland practicality of reason.* TakeThatScrappy: In ''Breaking Dawn'', there's one brief, shining moment when Leah chews Bella out for leading Jacob on like she has been. It happens offscreen and the reader is supposed to hate Leah for it, but it's still something.* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: ''Many'' of the secondary or minor characters in this series are considered infinitely more likable and interesting than the main characters, but are unfortunately severely underused or underdeveloped. Some standout examples include:** Leah Clearwater. As well as being an UnintentionallySympathetic EnsembleDarkhorse, she's a [[TheSnarkKnight snarky]] [[ActionGirl badass]] and notably the ''only'' female werewolf in her tribe's history, which she is generally ridiculed for, but still manages to use her abilities to save the day and prove herself a capable warrior. Some even opine she would arguably have made a much better protagonist than Bella, who is often criticized for being a [[ExtremeDoormat doormat]] and DistressedDamsel who [[PinballProtagonist never really does anything]] to resolve conflicts or move the plot forwards on her own. Instead, Leah is mostly there to make bitchy comments and get Jacob injured to create drama in the last few pages of ''Eclipse''. ** Charlie Swan. As outlined under TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot, many people believe the series would’ve much better if it focused on him. In the books themselves, he's mostly relegated to the role of unwitting FantasyForbiddingFather who comes between Bella and Edward's love due to [[InformedWrongness "misunderstanding"]] Edward and only becomes an important character plot-wise in the first book, due to James potentially targeting him. ** Just about any of the vampire covens the Cullens recruit to help them out in ''Breaking Dawn''. ** J. Jenks, the forger the Cullens work with, who is apparently at least half aware of what they truly are but keeps his silence for his own reasons. He's a very interesting and ''very'' important character, given he helps the Cullens uphold TheMasquerade... and yet he's not actually even ''mentioned'' until the last third of the final book and only featured in one small scene. ** Marcus. He's shown as by far the [[TokenGoodTeammate most reasonable]] of the Volturi and only seems to be allied with Aro because Aro is his brother-in-law. On top of that, he's the DeathSeeker [[TheWoobie Woobie]] who lost his wife (killed by Aro, ''her own brother'', unbeknownst to Marcus) and is mind-controlled by Chelsea into obeying the Volturi's will. In other words, his character arc is ''perfect'' for a HeelFaceTurn against Aro. Do you think that Stephanie Meyer ever does ''anything'' with this plot possibility? No, of course not.** Bella's human friends, in particular Angela (who seems to be the one person she genuinely enjoys hanging out with and confiding in besides the Cullens, and is an all-around [[NiceGirl nice person]] who, according to WordOfGod, is the only friend of Bella's that isn't a FalseFriend or trying to get in her pants). At one point, Bella jokingly mentions that if Angela turned out to be a witch, she could come hang out with her, the Cullens and the wolves too... which isn't actually a half-bad idea. At the least, it would've been interesting to have Angela find out the truth about the Cullens and become a SecretKeeper along with Bella, as well as letting her actually contribute to the plot in a meaningful way. Tragically, she's never even mentioned again after Bella marries Edward at the beginning of ''Breaking Dawn''.** Laurent. His betrayal of James to help out the Cullens and relationship with Irina set him up to be a somewhat complex or unpredictable character who would have a big impact on the Cullens. Pity most of it happens off-screen or is merely alluded to, and his only other appearance in the series is getting ripped apart by werewolves (again, unseen), after randomly trying to kill Bella.** Meyer introduced an entirely new ''species'' in the final pages of ''Breaking Dawn'': the Children of the Moon, who are said to "true" werewolves and the ancient enemies of the vampires, who have been hunted to near-extinction by the Volturi after one nearly killed Caius. Some of those might've been handy to have in the not-battle against the Volturi and they'd have a pretty good reason to want to go to war against them. They're only mentioned ''once'' in an offhand comment about Edward to HandWave that the Quileute wolves are actually just [[TotallyNotAWerewolf shapeshifters that turn into wolves, not real werewolves]] and so the Volturi have [[AssPull no grounds to go to war with them]], and then the subject is promptly dropped. * TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Many feel that the sprawling, epic vampires vs. werewolves story would be far more interesting than what they see as the walking RomanticPlotTumor that forms the books. Many others feel that the books would be better if they were about [[EnsembleDarkhorse likable]], clever small-town cop Charlie solving supernatural murders, rather than being about his obnoxious daughter getting laid.** The larger vampire culture and the power games that shape it — such as the brutal and bloody vampire mafia wars that Jasper is a veteran of, the overthrow of the ruling Romanian coven and their attempts to sieze power again, vampirekind's rivalry with the Children of the Moon, and the Machiavellian DecadentCourt the Volturi is implied to be — all sound like infinitely more interesting and awesome plotlines than listening to a bunch of spoiled, selfish teenagers whine about their relationship woes all day and night in a cold, wet, grey corner of the United States.** Rosalie's backstory could easily be a great story on its own, essentially being ''Film/KillBill'' with vampires. Yet it's briefly summed up in a single chapter and never mentioned again.** With some tweaking, ''Twilight'' could make a pretty decent GothicHorror. A few people ''claim'' the series to be this anyway (mostly because it's got vampires and vaguely Gothic-looking cover art) and it references a few Gothic novels (namely ''Wuthering Heights'' and ''Dracula''), but it isn't really an example (as many in the hatedom will be quick to point out). That being said, it ''does'' actually have a few traits of Gothic fiction, though most of them seem to be unintentional - namely BodyHorror, creepy, obsessive romantic relationships, a heroine who may be a little (or a lot) unhinged, melodrama, several cases of a WomanScorned, a dreary, isolated setting, [[DontGoIntoTheWoods dangerous woods]] and [[{{Gaslighting}} gaslighting]] the love interest. If the series were rewritten to ramp up these aspects (or heck, just ''interpreted'' this way instead of as a sappy teen romance, which judging by the AlternateCharacterInterpretation ''page'', is easy enough) then you'd have the ingredients for a modern Gothic horror story. * ThisLoserIsYou: Most of the fans still say they like the books because of how much they identify with Bella/ wish they were Bella.* UncannyValley: Robert Pattinson's heavily made-up face combined with massive Photoshopping on covers, posters, and promotional art.** Renesmee. Full stop. Her CGI self is not very convincing. However, it could have been [[http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/exclusive-first-look-twilight-renesmee-almost-creepiest-doll-195313020.html so much worse]]. For a while the crew tried using an animatronic doll, but the result was deemed so horrifying the cast even began calling it "[[Film/ChildsPlay Chuckesmee]]."** Bella's character profile in the official guide; she looks like someone took the face of a grown woman and slapped it onto a teenage girl's body.* UnintentionallySympathetic: ** Leah, oh dear God, Leah. Through most of the series, Leah is meant to be seen as a heartless bitch who didn't bow graciously out for Sam hooking up with Emily, uses the pack mind to think of various scandals, and tell Jacob he's being overly angsty about Bella. The problem with that is, with all the stuff she's been through (she has been dumped by her boyfriend because he imprinted on her cousin, she's hated by her wolf pack for being upset about it ([[DoubleStandard while Jacob is coddled for doing the same thing]]), might have caused her dad's heart attack when she transformed in front of him, is not able to have children, she's the only female to not be paired up romantically with someone at the end of Breaking Dawn, also in the same book she mentally admits that her ex-fiance wants her to disappear, and, to top it all off, her own brother, who she spends all of her time protecting, tells her "you ruin everything!") she comes across as an IronWoobie. She comes across as this even more so when one considers that the same people who call her selfish and whiny [[DoubleStandard all coddle Jacob for being even more self-centered and whiny over Bella]], who he was involved with far less than Leah was with Sam. Because of this, Leah is arguably the most popular character with antis, or even the only character they like at all.** Out of Bella's human friends, there is Lauren, who is supposedly an AlphaBitch because... She doesn't fawn over Bella like the rest of her human friends. The universe itself seems to punish her for this by having her approached by a modeling agency, being told she should cut her hair short and spend hundreds of dollars on head shots, only for them to never contact her again.** The Volturi are supposed to be the ruthless, tyrannical rulers of vampires. However, their only rule is "don't break TheMasquerade", and in enforcing this rule, they stopped the Egyptian and Romanian covens from their plan to take over the world and rule as gods, broke up devastating vampire wars, and stopped vampires from making [[CreepyChild vampire babies]] who couldn't be taught, destroyed whole towns in temper tantrums and feeding frenzies, and basically brainwashed covens to their side. It's not hard to see as the Volturi less as tyrants and more as the only things standing between the Twilight universe and the [[ZombieApocalypse Vampire Apocalypse]].** Charlie Swan really loves Bella and tries to be a good father, and she returns this love by decieving, manipulating, and being condescending towards him. It's no wonder most antis like the [[FanNickname Mustache Dad]].* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: ** Bella, whose helplessness and other attributes cause many to regard her as useless at best.*** Also her lack of problems but constant "need" to whine about basically everything. Even when there are genuine problems and threats she still tends to [[ItsAllAboutMe focus the narrative back on her]].*** All Meyer's shallow attempts to make Bella seem intelligent, deep and tortured just wind up making her seem whiny, pretentious and entitled.** ''Edward''. He's supposed to come across as a tortured, brooding ByronicHero who hates being a 'monster', but a lot of people think he comes across more as a whiny, arrogant prick. His reasons for being so angst-ridden are somewhat confusing, given that, prior to meeting Bella, the worst thing he did was kill humans...specifically, ''[[AssholeVictims murderers and rapists]]'' whom he could detect using his telepathy. Whilst it could be argued that he believes killing people in any form is morally wrong, it makes little sense why Edward would feel so guilt-ridden or monstrous over killing people FAR worse than he is. He could well have ''saved'' several innocent people from horrible fates, which Bella actually points out. It should also be noted that Edward's vigilantism only really comes up ONCE in the entire series, in a single scene early in ''Breaking Dawn'', and is then never brought up again. And yet, Edward is easily the whiniest of the Cullens despite having the least messed up backstory. And this isn't even getting into the way he [[BastardBoyfriend treats his girlfriend]], including stalking her, gaslighting her, manipulating her, insulting her and trying to control her...all in the name of love, of course. He refuses to open up to Bella or consider her opinions, because she 'might get hurt', but [[{{Hypocrite}} is perfectly fine deciding how she will live her life to suit him]], as well as following her around, breaking into her house and prying into other people's minds to keep tabs on her, largely without her knowledge or consent. *** The few glimpses we get into his mind also unintentionally paint him as a pretentious and bigoted asshole who is [[FantasticRacism racist towards the werewolves]] and looks down on everyone who isn't his family or Bella. ''Midnight Sun'' makes him even less sympathetic; he openly contemplates ''murder'' more than once to get to Bella (no crippling conscience where SHE's concerned, we see) and generally comes across as a bit of a psychopath. He's not even that sympathetic in ''New Moon'' when he tries to kill himself over Bella's supposed 'death', on account of the fact he [[TooDumbToLive stupidly assumes she's dead without thoroughly checking]] and then selfishly decides to do away with himself by potentially exposing the vampire world and risking the lives of several innocent humans (he considers massacring the townsfolk, and even his decision to expose himself in broad daylight puts people at risk because presumably the Volturi would have to do away with anyone who witnessed the sparkling). He only gets worse in ''Breaking Dawn'', where he tries to ''force an abortion on his wife'' and even tries to negotiate pimping her out to Jacob to give her a baby without once consulting her or attempting to see things from her point of view. Again, in the name of 'true love'. ** Jacob, mostly in regards to Bella. We're meant to feel sorry for him because the girl he loves [[AllLoveIsUnrequited only likes him as a friend]] and is with his worst enemy...only the kid is about sixteen and Bella is pretty much the first and only girl he's ever had a crush on. He's almost as bad as Bella when it comes to melodrama over their supposed 'true loves' whom they've only known for a short while. It should also be noted that, as a werewolf, Jacob's 'true love' is his imprint, which is made clear ''isn't'' Bella, so one wonders why he kicks up such a fuss. He also throws tantrums if she does anything he doesn't like, at one point even stating to her face he thinks she'd be better off dead than a vampire - opinions on vampirism aside, this is an awful thing to say to your supposed best friend. He also [[ForcefulKiss forcibly kisses]] Bella, which could actually be considered a form of sexual assault (indeed, she flips shit and tries to ''punch'' him over it, which is PlayedForLaughs). Finally, he spends most of his time angsting over Bella and everyone in the pack feels sorry for him and supports him...whilst, as mentioned in UnintentionallySympathetic, Leah Clearwater is vilified for the exact same thing (only worse in her case, due to her long-term fiancé leaving her for her cousin and best friend with no explanation, and then her father dying suddenly, among other things). ** The Denalis, specifically, their 'mother' Sasha. She was executed by the Volturi for making an immortal child, which is portrayed as a huge tragedy and an example of how awful and tyrannical the Volturi are...only given the nature of immortal children (as discussed on this very page), Sasha honestly comes across as a self-centred nutcase who got exactly what she deserved for [[WouldHurtAChild torturing and getting an innocent child killed]], getting dozens of innocent humans killed and, considering that even ''knowing'' of an immortal child results in death, risking the lives of her 'daughters'. All because she wanted a '[[CreepyChild cute little vampire baby]]'. * VanillaProtagonist: Fans and detractors mostly agree that Bella lacks a personality and is generally boring. She was specifically written so that the reader can step into her shoes, and experience the cool supernatural world of vampires and werewolves (and the hotties fighting over her). Compare her backstory (moves from Phoenix to a small town in Washington, becomes popular, falls in love with supernatural beings) with that of Carlisle (devout Christian vampire hunter becomes vampire, spends his life helping people even though they're his natural prey), Rosalie ([[spoiler:girl becomes a vampire after being raped and left for dead by her fiance, kills him]]), Jasper (ex-Confederate soldier and some of his friends raise a vampire army), and others.* VocalMinority: ''Twilight'' has spawned a fantastically trollish fans, which doesn't really pan out great for the 90% who just want to read the books. A lot of fans will actually acknowledge all of Twilight's flaws and parody it shamelessly themselves.** Also, the extremely vocal and avid haters, who seem to use every opportunity to bash the series and its fans in every square inch of the internet, including [[Wiki/TVTropes This Very Wiki]].* VoodooShark: Meyer's [[http://web.archive.org/web/20090516234031/http://twilightsucks.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=twilight&action=display&thread=638 attempt]] at explaining why male vampires could breed.* {{Wangst}}: Both Bella and Edward. Full stop, reaching the absolute peak in ''New Moon''. ** Jacob gets in on it too in ''Eclipse'' and ''especially'' in his chapters in ''Breaking Dawn''.* WhatAnIdiot: ** Despite supposedly being a great doctor, Carlisle tends to do things that only make sense to someone with no medical experience. Like cleaning the shrapnel from Bella's wound at the beginning of ''New Moon'' in the very dining room where it happened, and stocking up on the rarest kind of blood from the Forks blood bank to make sure Bella has nourishment handy during her first few days as a vampire. When Bella's pregnancy is killing her, he even exclaims "I can't figure out what it ''wants''!" He can't figure out that the offspring from a human x vampire copulation could, possibly, be part-vampire and have a vampire's dietary needs.*** Not to mention that freaking ''morphine'' is his go-to drug, even in circumstances where a much less potent painkiller could have been used.*** And the fact that he applies antiseptic ''after'' suturing Bella's wound, not before. Doesn't do much good if the bacteria you want to get rid of is inside the closed wound.** Someone (it's not specified who) diagnoses Bella with a ruptured placenta after she vomits blood. How those two are connected, nobody will know.** The fact that Edward, a guy with two medical degrees, orders Jacob to start CPR on Bella while her heart is beating (Jacob mentions it specifically) and she is breathing on her own accord (Jacob mentions that she's coughing). All that's going to accomplish is break her sternum - especially when performed by a supernaturally strong wherewolf. Then again Jacob, for unknown reasons, goes for the inhales instead of the compressions, even though compressions is where he ought to start. While he may not know that, someone with two medical degrees definitely would.** Also, agreeing to ally with the Romanian vampires in ''Breaking Dawn.'' They were the previous rulers of vampire-kind before being overthrown by the Volturi. The enmity between the two groups is apparently so strong Laurent was denied into the Volturi just because he talked to them once. Yet the Cullens accept the Romanians' help, even though they're hoping to reach a peaceful solution to the dispute with the Volturi.** Edward assuming Bella is dead in ''New Moon'', to an extent. All he has to go on is Rosalie’s thoughts that Alice had a vision of her jumping off a cliff and a vague comment made by Jacob. He himself knows that Alice’s visions aren’t always reliable and that Rosalie isn’t the most trustworthy of people. Rather than call Alice to double-check her vision, or if he was that bothered, sneak back to Forks or send one of his family members to check if Bella’s okay (which Alice ''herself'' actually does), he decides to call the Swan house (pretending to be Carlisle, for some reason) and ask after Bella. That in itself isn’t that stupid an idea, but he ''immediately'' assumes Jacob’s talking about Bella when Jacob cryptically states Charlie’s “at the funeral” and ''hangs up without clarifying''. Especially seeing as Charlie’s a ''cop'', he could’ve been going to anyone’s funeral. Edward ''still'' doesn’t double-check that Bella is really dead; instead he goes straight to ''trying to kill himself''. He himself outright states he could've tried calling Alice to check!** Bella not telling anyone about James supposedly kidnapping her mother. James is heavily outnumbered by the Cullens and they have two vampires that can predict his moves in their ranks, so there's a good chance Renee could've been rescued (had she actually been kidnapped). Bella could've also tried calling her mother to check if she's okay or checked with Alice, who would probably have foreseen James kidnapping Renee. If Bella had ''told'' the Cullens that James had her mother and was threatening to kill her unless she met him alone, they could probably have worked out a plan to trick him; they'd also probably have figured out pretty quickly that he didn't actually have her (Alice could've foreseen that she was fine and Edward would be able to read James' thoughts and figure out the truth). Instead, Bella opts to go right to martyring herself.* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic: Possibly one of the most major criticisms leveled at the film, especially by the British education system and by British parents. ValuesDissonance indeed.* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: And yet Burger King just made ''Twilight''-themed Happy Meals.* TheWoobie: ** ''Bree Tanner''. Her whole character arc is basically a case of ShootTheShaggyDog, that gets even worse if you've read ''The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner''. She was raised by her [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] and believed her mother had [[ParentalAbandonment abandoned her]] when she was four, when in actual fact, her father secretly murdered her and disposed of her body. After getting sick of her father's abuse and running away, Bree lives on the streets, rummaging through trash and sleeping anywhere that might offer shelter to survive. She's tricked and made into a vampire against her will and knows no other life than killing people for their blood and trying to avoid being ripped apart by other newborns, being told that her only purpose is to fight a bunch of other vampires she's never even heard of. She finally finds some happiness with Diego, only for him to be killed. She doesn't even participate in the battle against the Cullens and cooperates with them and the Volturi, but is still executed, for the crime of association, under laws she is completely ignorant of. She never even lives to see her sixteenth birthday. The only worthwhile thing that comes from her death is letting Edward and by extension the rest of the Cullens know that the Volturi were in on Victoria's plot, though given how ''Breaking Dawn'' plays out, they never actually do anything with this information. ShootTheShaggyDog, indeed.** Bella when Edward, her true soulmate and only love, leaves her and takes the loving family she thought she would spend eternity being part of with him in ''New Moon''.*** For some people, though, this comes across as {{Wangst}} or UnintentionallyUnsympathetic, given she only knew Edward for a few months and yet close to a ''year'' later, is still acting depressed and even suicidal over it, treating her family and friends - most of whom have tried to be supportive - rather crappily in the process. That, and it's something of a ForegoneConclusion that Edward was going to be coming back anyway. ** Jacob when Bella, the girl he has been helping to heal in hopes of winning her love, leaves him, risking her life, to save the man he was healing her from in ''New Moon''.** Edward when you realize that while everyone had someone to love in the Cullen Coven he was all alone, didn't even have a date to prom (any of them), and was so depressed that he couldn't even play music anymore before Bella.** Rosalie being to having the family she always wanted, then being gang-raped and left for dead by the man she was going to marry.** Carlisle was turned into a vampire against his will and had to leave his father knowing that he would never accept him and probably try to kill him, spent centuries trying to kill himself to avoid feeding on people and was almost mad out of loneliness till he managed to get a companion in Edward and then a whole family.** Jasper feeling the agony of the thousands of people he killed till he found Alice and peace with the Cullens and his "vegetarian" lifestyle.** James. His parents were killed before he turned eleven and he spent his childhood alone, struggling for survival in the wild, with only his hunting skills to rely on. ** Victoria. Nearly every member of her first coven (including her older sister) was slaughtered by the Volturi, who wanted to add Heidi to their collection. Victoria only survived thanks to her own power of self-preservation. Later, after her mate was killed, she was ruthlessly (if ineffectively) hunted by Edward merely for being an accomplice in his (James's) hunt for Bella.** Leah for being dumped by her fiance for her cousin (who he scarred when she rejected him), might have caused her dad's heart attack when she transformed in front of him, is not able to have children, is hated by the rest of the pack, protects a clan she hates, and is the only female not to be paired up at the end. In ''Breaking Dawn'', she mentally admits that her ex-fiance wants her to disappear and her own brother, who she spends all of her time protecting, tells her "you ruin everything!"*** It's also implied that she's infertile. She says something about being either "not female enough", and she's stopped having her period as a result of being a werew- I mean, [[Literature/BloodAndChocolate loups-]] dammit, shape shifter.** Charlie, whose only daughter goes on a four month crying spree over a break-up with her boyfriend during which she becomes nearly suicidally depressed. He also has to cope with her running off or doing very dangerous things without telling him ''anything'', and her being involved in a relationship with a boy he doesn't approve of, whom from his perspective, seems to be emotionally manipulative or possibly even abusive. And she ends up ''marrying'' this guy straight out of high school. Then Bella gets 'sick' on her honeymoon and no one will contact Charlie, let him see her or give him any information regarding her well-being at all. He's left worrying if his daughter is okay and where she is for ''weeks''. And before that, the woman he loved more than anyone (and still loves to this day) dumped him abruptly and moved halfway across the country, taking their baby daughter with them. Charlie only got to see Bella sporadically when she was growing up and when she moves in with him, he tries time and again to relate to her and build a relationship, only to be repeatedly rebuffed by her. His best friend dies of a heart attack too (and in the film adaptions, not long before Harry's death, another close friend was killed by 'an animal', which he then began to believe was actually a serial killer...whom he was ''never able to bring to justice''. He still thinks the person/people who murdered his friend and several other people are out there somewhere, probably committing more murders). And to top it all off, unbeknownst to him, Bella was planning on either 'disappearing' or faking her death to become a vampire. Although this didn't actually come to pass due to certain circumstances and Charlie was oblivious, it's awful thinking about how devastated Charlie would've been to lose his only child that way. *** In ''Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined'', he actually ''does'' lose his son, Beau (the gender-flipped version of Bella, who gets turned into a vampire by James' gender-flipped counterpart Joss and has to fake his death), struggling to hold it together during his funeral. ** Alistair. He's clearly unhappy about being dragged by the Cullens into a potential battle with the Volturi, and he abandons everyone as soon as he can. Then the official Guide came out, and his backstory was revealed: his own father sold him '''and his entire family''' to a vampire in exchange for power. When said vampire transformed him, he fell into a bloodlust that caused the death of dozens, including his father. Upon realizing what he had done, he ran away, only to discover that his family was gone, he couldn't live anymore among humans, and his beloved animals rejected him out of sheer terror on top of that. No wonder he turned into a paranoid loony who refuses any kind of company. The movie makes it worse, because he stated that he was actually growing [[HopeSpot a little hope]] that everything would be settled peacefully... before seeing Bella packing a note and resources for Jacob and Renésmee's getaway, at which points he realizes she never had any hope for the Volturi to stop and listen.** Marcus. His wife, who was Aro's sister, had been murdered and he never found the culprit. Now, he's TheEeyore of the Volturi. During the climax of the last movie ([[spoiler:even though it's only a vision of what could happen]]), what's his reaction when he's confronted by two vampires about to kill him?--> '''Marcus:''' ''(lightly smiling and without even trying to resist)'' "Finally..."[[/folder]]----